PLEASURES    OF 
LITERATURE 


BY 
ROBERT  ARIS  WILLMOTT 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 

CRANSTOUN  METCALFE 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK  &  LONDON 

"Knickerbocker  press 
1907 


Itnickcrbochcr  press,  flew  JJork 


INTRODUCTORY 
I 

A  WITTY  man  of  letters  has  suggested  that 
books  which  have  any  pretension  to  be 
ranked  as  literature  may  be  divided  into  two 
classes — those  which  are  read  by  everybody  for  a 
little  while  and  thereafter  read  by  nobody,  and 
those  which  are  read  by  somebody  for  ever.  The 
number  of  writers  who  are  represented  in  both 
classes  is  not  large,  but  among  them  is  Robert 
Aris  Willmott,  the  subject  of  this  brief  note. 

He  was  born  on  the  3Oth  of  January,  1809,  at 
Bradford  in  Wiltshire,  the  son  of  a  solicitor,  a  man 
of  somewhat  impracticable  disposition,  according 
to  the  writer  of  the  article  about  his  son  in  the 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  and  the  sport 
of  capricious  fortune  in  respect  of  his  pecuniary 
affairs.  He  was,  however,  in  a  position  to  give 
his  son  a  good  education,  sending  him  first  to  the 
the  Merchant  Taylors'  School,  and  afterwards  to 
iU 


iv  introductory 

Harrow.  The  son  manifested  his  intellectual  bias 
at  an  early  age,  and  achieved  rapid  success.  While 
still  at  Harrow  he  brought  out  the  first  number  of 
The  Harrovian,  and  within  two  years  of  leaving 
school  he  was  a  contributor  to  several  periodical 
publications  of  repute,  of  which  we  need  not  name 
more  than  Prater's  Magazine.  At  the  end  of  1828, 
he  left  Harrow,  and  obtained  an  appointment  as 
private  tutor  at  the  handsome  salary  of  ^300  a 
year.  He  retained  the  appointment  for  about 
two  years.  In  1832,  he  was  entered  at  Trinity  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  but  he  did  not  matriculate  until 
1834,  and  he  did  not  graduate  until  1841.  He 
supported  himself  at  the  university  by  writing, 
and  seven  published  volumes  attest  his  industry 
during  that  period.  His  literary  activities  seem 
to  have  caught  the  attention  of  the  master.  Will- 
mott  was  so  unfortunate  as  to  take  lodgings  in  a 
house  not  licensed  for  that  purpose  by  the  college, 
and  he  was  in  danger  of  being  disallowed  the  terms 
during  which  he  had  resided  there.  This  was  a 
serious  matter  for  one  whose  financial  position  was 
by  no  means  assured,  and  he  appealed  to  the  au- 
thorities to  release  him  from  the  predicament  in 
which  he  had  ignorantly  placed  himself.  This 
they  were  able  to  do;  and  when  communicating 


fntrobuctorg  v 

the  satisfactory  news  to  his  mother,  Willmott 
mentions  that  the  master  referred  to  his  achieve- 
ments as  an  author,  and  hinted  that  while  he  was 
still  in  a  state  of  pupilage  he  might  find  it  advan- 
tageous to  restrict  his  intellectual  labours  to  the 
curriculum  prescribed  for  the  schools.  The  mas- 
ter does  not  appear  to  have  insisted,  however,  and 
the  undergraduate  must  have  displayed  some 
diplomatic  skill  in  a  delicate  situation.  He  com- 
ments rather  grimly  to  his  mother  on  the  compul- 
sion laid  upon  him  to  write  if  he  would  read,  and 
no  more  is  heard  of  the  matter. 

In  1842,  Willmott  was  ordained  deacon,  being 
licensed  to  St.  James's,  Radcliffe,  where  he  re- 
mained for  two  years  and  won  popularity.  His 
health,  however,  gave  way,  and  he  moved  first  to 
Chelsea  Hospital,  where  he  stayed  only  three 
months,  and  next  to  Launton  in  Oxfordshire.  It 
was  1846  that  was  the  year  of  his  emancipation 
from  this  state  of  unrest.  John  Walter,  of  The 
Times,  had  lately  built  the  Church  of  St.  Cath- 
erine, at  Bear  Wood,  and,  the  edifice  having  been 
consecrated,  appointed  Willmott  first  incumbent 
of  the  living.  John  Walter  died  the  following 
year,  and  the  sermon  which  Willmott  preached  on 
the  occasion  of  his  funeral  remains  proof  of  the 


VI 


Introfcuctors 


preacher's  sincere  admiration  and  genuine  grat- 
itude. The  Walter  who  succeeded  to  Bear  Wood 
continued  to  show  the  greatest  possible  generosity 
and  kindness  to  the  incumbent;  his  stipend  was 
raised  to  the  respectable  sum  of  £400  a  year,  a 
substantial  house  was  built  for  him  for  which  he 
paid  no  rent,  and  Willmott,  who  was  unmarried, 
surely  had  reason  to  consider  himself  an  excep- 
tionally fortunate  man,  in  spite  of  the  constant 
charge  imposed  upon  his  purse  by  an  invalid 
mother  and  sister. 

Here  he  devoted  himself  to  literature.    In  1847, 
he  published  his  Life  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  as  the 
author  of  which  he  always  thereafter  described 
himself.    In  1848,  he  brought  out  a  second,  greatly 
enlarged,  edition  of 'his  Poems,  the  first  edition  of 
which  appeared  seven  years  previously;  in  1849, 
A  Journal  of  Summer-time  in  the  Country  first  saw 
the  light,  next  to  the  present  work  in  merit  and 
popularity;  it  went  into  several  editions,  one,  well 
illustrated,  in  1858,  and  a  fourth  edition,  with  a 
biographical  memoir  of  the  author  by  his  sister 
Cornelia,  in  1864, the  year  after  his  death;  in  1850, 
he  published  an  anthology  entitled  Precious  Stones 
from  Prose  Writers  of  tie  Sixteenth,  Seventeenth, 
and  Eighteenth  Centuries;  and  in  1857,  Poets  of  the 


Introductory  vii 

Nineteenth  Century,  a  really  well-illustrated  and 
interesting  anthology;  in  1862,  his  volume  of  Eng- 
lish Sacred  Poetry  appeared.  During  this  period, 
he  also  edited  for  Routledge's  British  Poets  the 
poems  of  Gray,  Parnell,  Collins,  Green,  Warton, 
Akenside,  Dyer,  Cowper,  Burns,  selections  from 
Wordsworth  and  James  Montgomery,  Percy's 
Reliques,  Fairfax's  translation  of  Tasso's  Jerusa- 
lem Delivered,  Goldsmith's  Poems,  and  the  poetical 
and  prose  works  of  George  Herbert.  It  is  a  cred- 
itable record  of  patient  literary  work,  done  with- 
out any  manifestation  of  exceptional  editorial 
ability  or  critical  acumen,  but  conscientiously  and 
adequately  done  nevertheless.  The  Saturday  Re- 
viewer of  whom  we  shall  have  occasion  to  speak 
presently,  talks  of  Willmott's  ''  housewifely  care," 
and  the  phrase  pleases  us,  as  apt  and  not  unkind 
as  it  was  meant  to  be.  These  were  Willmott's 
contributions  to  the  class  of  books  which  every- 
body reads  for  a  while,  and  nobody  reads  there- 
after; perhaps  the  Journal  of  Summer-time  in  the 
Country  must  be  removed  from  it,  but  without 
that  the  contribution  is  generous.  Willmott  was 
known  as  a  capable  editor,  and  he  certainly  tasted 
success. 

Last    of    all    we    must    specify  Pleasures   of 


viii  Untrofcuctors 

Literature,  his  one  undeniable  addition  to  the 
class  of  books  which  somebody  will  always  read. 
It  was  first  published  in  1851,  and,  as  will  be 
seen  presently,  went  into  a  fifth  edition  during 
its  author's  life,  while  no  less  than  five  editions 
published  in  German  before  1858. 

Since  Willmott's  days  were  not  to  be  prolonged, 
it  is  rather  sad  to  know  that  they  were  not  lived 
out  to  their  close  at  Bear  Wood,  with  which  place 
he  will  always  be  associated,  and  where  he  would 
seem  to  have  enjoyed  the  delightful,  honourable, 
and  useful  life  of  the  country  parson.  In  1861 
"  differences  arose  with  the  patron,  and  Willmott 
resigned  the  benefice  in  May,  1862, on  a  pension  of 
£160  per  annum:"  thus  writes  the  contributor 
to  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  without 
going  into  particulars.  Miss  Cornelia  Willmott 
refers  briefly  to  the  sorry  business  in  her  memoir 
of  her  brother  to  which  reference  has  been  made. 
It  seems  that  Willmott  was  anxious  to  bring  out 
a  new  edition  of  his  Life  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  and 
desired  for  that  purpose  to  repurchase  the  copy- 
right of  the  book,  with  which  he  had  parted.  Not 
having  sufficient  funds  at  his  disposal,  he  applied 
for  assistance  to  the  patron  of  the  living,  appar- 
ently offering  as  security  for  the  loan  a  charge 


Untrotwcton?  ix 

upon  some  life  insurance  policy.  Mr.  Walter, 
however,  did  not  choose  to  accede  to  the  request, 
and,  according  to  Miss  Willmott,  the  refusal  was 
accompanied  by  such  an  alteration  in  his  behav- 
iour that  her  brother's  health  was  affected  thereby. 
The  friction  grew,  and  at  last  Willmott  threw  up 
the  living.  Reading  between  the  lines,  it  is  im- 
possible to  escape  the  impression  that  the  son  had 
inherited  the  "somewhat  impracticable  disposi- 
tion" of  the  father.  A  pension  of  £160  a  year 
was  accorded  to  him,  but  it  was  accompanied  by 
the  most  unusual  stipulations  that  he  should  re- 
main unmarried  which,  his  sister  remarks,  did  not 
trouble  him  at  all  and  that  he  should  not  only 
refrain  from  taking  part  in  any  service  in  St.  Cath- 
erine's Church,  but  never  again  come  within  ten 
miles  of  the  parish. 

It  was  exile,  and  it  may  be  said  to  have  killed 
him.  He  moved  to  Nettlebed  in  Oxfordshire,  and 
proceeded  with  his  literary  occupations,  but  his 
health  was  broken ;  a  visit  to  the  seaside  afforded 
but  little  benefit,  and  he  returned  to  Nettlebed, 
where  he  was  seized  with  paralysis.  He  died  on 
the  27th  of  May,  1863,  and  was  buried,  one  is  glad 
to  know,  at  Bear  Wood. 


x  Introductory 

II 

Pleasures,  Objects,  and  Advantages  of  Literature 
was  the  cumbrous  title  with  which  this  "dis- 
course" was  introduced  to  the  world  by  Thomas 
Bosworth  in  185 1.  The  first  edition  opens  with  a 
preface  of  which  the  principal  part,  likening  the 
readers  of  the  work  to  a  party  of  travellers  com- 
paring notes  upon  the  scenes  which  they  had 
visited,  was  afterwards  incorporated  in  the  last 
chapter;  the  preface  is  tinctured  with  a  certain 
self-complacency  which  would  seem  to  have  been 
characteristic  of  the  author.  "  He  hopes  that  his 
errors  are  neither  serious  nor  many ;  but  the  recol- 
lection of  a  remark  upon  a  former  publication 
induces  him  to  say,  that  he  is  in  the  habit  of  writ- 
ing the  names  of  painters  and  authors  as  they 
appear  in  the  classical  Criticism  and  Biography 
of  the  eighteenth  century — in  Warton,  Gilpin, 
Price,  and  Reynolds— without  reference  to  the 
latest  Handbook  or  Dictionary.  To  any  graver 
objections  he  can  only  reply  by  adopting  the  re- 
quest of  one  of  the  oldest  living  poets  in  England, 
that  all  the  fault-finders  will  sit  down  immedi- 
ately, and  excel  him  as  much  as  they  can ;  which  he 
sincerely  desires  may  be  as  much  as  they  please." 


Introfcuctors  xi 

Of  the  second  and  third  editions  I  have  seen  no 
copy,  in  that  respect  apparently  being  as  little 
fortunate  as  the  writer  of  the  article  on  Willmott 
in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  who  only 
mentions  the  first,  fourth,  and  fifth  editions,  of 
which  copies  are  in  the  library  of  the  British  Mu- 
seum. The  fourth,  revised,  edition  was  pub- 
lished in  1855  by  Messrs.  G.  Routledge  &  Co.  It 
reproduces  the  original  preface,  and  adds  a  further 
prefatory  note,  to  the  effect  that  the  marginal 
references  which  were  a  feature  of  its  precursors 
have  been  omitted  in  order  to  permit  of  the 
compression  of  the  text  within  the  space 
allotted  to  it.  The  revision  had  been  careful, 
and  it  is  interesting  to  see  the  author  at  work, 
as  it  were,  anxiously  scrutinising  his  own  per- 
formance, balancing  words  and  phrases,  delib- 
erating over  punctuation,  and  painfully  seeking 
to  improve  the  book  in  every  particular.  The 
great  difference  between  the  fourth  and  the  first 
edition  lies  in  the  arrangement  of  the  material. 
What  had  been  Chapter  VI.  now  becomes 
Chapter  I.;  Chapters  I.  III.  and  II.  are  united 
to  form  Chapter  II.;  Chapters  IV.  and  V.  to- 
gether constitute  Chapter  III.;  Chapters  XII. 
to  XVII.  become  Chapters  IV.  to  IX.,  both  in- 


Xll 


Introfcuctors 


elusive;  Chapters  XVIII.  and  XIX.  are  com- 
bined to  form  Chapter  X.;  Chapters  XX.,  VII., 
and  VIII.  form  Chapter  XI.;  Chapter  IX.  be- 
comes Chapter  XII.;  the  first  half  of  Chapter 
XXIV.  with  the  whole  of  Chapters  X.  and  XI. 
makes  Chapter  XIII.;  while  Chapters  XXII., 
XXIII.,  XXI.,  and  the  second  half  of  XXIV. 
are  combined  to  make  Chapter  XIV.;  thereafter, 
the  original  sequence  is  preserved,  but  six  chap- 
ters are  paired  together  and  numbered  as  three. 
All  this  shows  sedulous  care,  and  the  book  is 
undoubtedly  improved  by  the  rearrangement. 
The  textual  alterations  and  additions  are  also 
considerable. 

Five  years  later,  in  1860,  the  fifth,  enlarged, 
edition  was  published  by  Messrs.  Bell  &  Daldy. 
From  this  the  original  preface  disappears,  the 
simile  of  the  travellers  being  transferred  to  the 
final  chapter,  but  otherwise  the  arrangement  of 
the  fourth  edition  is  adhered  to;  there  are  many 
additions  to  the  text,  tending  upon  the  whole  to 
the  improvement  of  the  work;  a  list  of  books 
referred  to  in  the  text  is  appended;  and  "a  few 
short  passages  are  introduced  from  anonymous 
contributions  of  the  writer's  earlier  pen,  and  he 
names  them  here  lest  he  should  be  suspected 


of    owing   to  others  a    debt  which   is    due  to 
himself." 

This  last  remark  is  not  without  significance. 
Willmott  was  in  considerable  request  as  an  editor, 
but,  despite  his  remarks  on  p.  87  of  this  volume 
on  the  subject  of  plagiarism,  he  would  seem  to 
have  been  uncertain  occasionally  as  to  the  distinc- 
tion between  adaptation  of  common  material  and 
appropriation  of  the  work  fashioned  from  it  by 
others.  A  Saturday  Reviewer,  for  example,  criti- 
cising his  edition  of  Percy's  Reliques,  published  in 
1857,  waxes  sarcastic  on  this  point,  and  is  at  pains 
to  print  Willmott's  note  on  the  metre  of  Piers 
Plowman  parallel  with  Wright's  note  on  the  same 
subject  published  fifteen  years  earlier,  a  note  cer- 
tainly accessible  to  Willmott  and  almost  certainly 
consulted  by  him.  We  are  free  to  confess  that 
Willmott  lays  himself  open  to  attacks  of  this  kind, 
but  a  plausible  defence  may  be  suggested.  He 
was  a  widely  read  man,  with  a  retentive  memory, 
and  he  had  a  marked  liking  for  the  apothegm.  It 
is  charitable  to  suppose  that  he  gave  his  readers 
credit  for  being  as  well  informed  as  himself,  and 
consequently  for  requiring  less  scrupulosity  on  his 
part  in  the  matter  of  references  and  use  of  in- 
verted commas.  He  may  have  been  indiscreet, 


XIV 


Introductory 


but  he  was  not  deliberately  immoral.  Moreover, 
wisdom  came  to  him  with  the  years.  In  the  first 
edition  of  this  work,  in  the  chapter  on  "The  Ac- 
countability of  Authors,"  he  says  of  the  deadly 
properties  which  a  book  may  possess,  that  a 
book  is  even  more  than  the  life  treasured  up, 
which  Milton  considered  it  to  be:  "It  is  the  soul 
disengaged  from  matter.  It  is  a  fountain  that 
flows  for  ever.  What  should  be  done  to  the  man 
who  lavished  his  fortune  in  naturalising  a  fever, 
and  organised  a  system  of  propagating  the  plague 
through  the  post-office?  The  execration  of  the 
world  would  drive  him  into  the  wilderness.  Yet 
it  has  been  thought  that  a  man  had  better  be  de- 
filed in  his  blood  than  in  his  principles."  That  is 
a  moral  reflection,  trenchantly  worded,  and  of 
prime  importance  to  the  case.  But  except  for 
the  words  "it  has  been  thought,"  in  the  conclud- 
ing sentence,  there  is  nothing  to  suggest  that  the 
thought  and  the  language  are  not  both  justly 
attributable  to  Willmott  himself.  Perhaps  he 
may  have  taken  to  heart  the  admonition  conveyed 
to  him  by  the  Saturday  Reviewer,  for  in  the  fifth 
edition,  published  three  years  after  the  vigorous 
castigation  of  him,  he  retains  the  passage,  but 
prefixes  to  it  the  words  "Jeremy  Collier  asked," 


flntro&uctorg  xv 

thus  conceding  the  credit  for  the  laudable  inquiry 
to  him  who  first  propounded  it.  Counsel  for  the 
defence  will  not  fail,  moreover,  to  refer  in  other 
doubtful  passages  to  the  first  edition,  where  the 
marginal  references  frequently  give  chapter  and 
verse  for  some  of  the  sublime  and  sonorous  apho- 
risms embodied  in  the  text. 

And  how  admirable  they  are!  Line  follows 
line,  page  succeeds  page,  each  glowing  with  rich 
imagery,  all  progressing  with  measured  tread  to 
the  predetermined  goal.  Stylists  whose  reputation 
rests  upon  performance  know  what  delicacy  of 
feeling,  what  fineness,  coupled  with  certainty,  of 
touch,  are  necessary  to  a  man  who  would  excel  in 
work  of  this  nature.  Scholarship  paraded  be- 
comes wearisome  as  pedantry;  ornament  in  excess 
is  offensive  as  ostentation;  moral  reflections  im- 
pertinently introduced  affront  the  intelligence  and 
forfeit  interest.  One  false  note  will  mar  the 
entire  composition,  and  the  danger  increases  in 
direct  ratio  with  the  degree  of  its  elaboration. 
Unless  protected  by  the  talisman  of  sincerity,  the 
pomp  of  the  utterance  degenerates  into  pom- 
posity, and  what  appealed  to  the  imagination  as 
being  simple  and  moving  will  be  perceived  by  the 
intellect  to  be  affected  and  untrue. 


xvi  fntrofcuctors 

Sincerity  is  the  saving  grace  and  the  supreme 
merit  of  Pleasures  of  Literature.  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  shortcomings  of  Robert  Aris  Will- 
mott  in  his  personal  relations  with  his  patrons, 
whatever  the  limitations  to  his  genius  as  an  editor, 
he  must  be  declared  to  have  been  ever  a  loyal  and 
reverential  servant  to  his  chosen  mistress,  Liter- 
ature. He  was  not  one  of  those  who  "go  in  for" 
literature  in  order  to  supplement  their  income,  as 
some  men  "go  in  for"  keeping  poultry,  or  some 
women  for  making  lace.  Nor  was  he  one  to  tol- 
erate the  suggestion  that  his  literary  occupations 
were  in  the  least  derogatory  to  the  dignity  of  his 
profession  as  ordained  minister  of  God's  Word. 
His  point  of  departure  is  made  clear  in  the  two 
quotations  prefixed  to  every  edition  of  this  work, 
from  Bishop  Hall's  Epistle  to  Mr.  Mil-ward,  and 
from  Crabbe's  poem  The  Borough.  Willmott 
turned  to  letters  as  Herbert  turned  to  his  viol, 
each  using  his  gift  to  the  greater  glory  of  God,  and 
gathering  pleasure  the  while.  If  to  modern  ears 
their  music  seems  quaint,  modernity  has  only  one 
more  claim  upon  the  pity  of  those  who  know  that 
the  joy  of  a  thing  of  beauty  is  constant,  and  that  if 
it  ceases  to  be  appreciated  the  explanation  is  to  be 
found  in  some  defect  in  the  sight  of  the  beholder. 


flntro&ttcton? 

In  submitting  any  criticism  of  a  book  of  the 
kind  here  reproduced,  it  is  necessary  to  refer 
always  to  the  personality  of  its  author,  and  it 
would  be  only  fair  to  recall  the  characteristic  note 
of  the  period  in  which  he  lived.  "Academic"  is 
a  word  which  has  been  applied  with  some  disdain 
to  Pleasures  of  Literature.  But  if  the  word  is  to 
be  permitted  to  bear  a  scornful  interpretation,  it 
must  be  modified  in  the  present  case.  The  school- 
master was  abroad  when  Willmott  flourished. 
The  influence  of  that  exasperating  genius  may  be 
traced  in  most  books  of  the  period  that  do  not 
indisputably  belong  to  the  front  rank  of  literature. 
It  is  immediately  perceptible  in  Willmott's  edi- 
torial work,  and  it  permeates  his  letters.  To  a 
small  extent  it  may  have  affected  this  particular 
work.  But  Willmott  was  a  man  who  never  came 
into  his  own  kingdom.  He  was  a  born  preacher, 
and  it  is  a  loss  to  English  literature  that  more  of 
his  sermons  have  not  been  preserved.  We  know 
from  his  sister  that  he  took  the  greatest  possible 
pains  over  their  preparation,  but  it  does  not  ap- 
pear that  he  himself  rated  the  finished  result 
particularly  high.  Yet  in  his  life  his  reputation  as 
a  pulpit  orator  was  considerable.  "One  of  the 
most  admirable  preachers  of  our  time,"  Henry 


xviii  flntrofcuctors 

Christmas  calls  him,  and  gives  his  portrait  as  a 
frontispiece  to  his  interesting  book  on  Preachers 
and  Preaching,  published  in  1858.  The  extracts 
which  he  makes  from  Willmott's  sermons  are 
numerous  and  of  unequal  merit,  but  one  must  be 
reproduced  here : 

"  The  lone  Hebrew  woman  rises  from  her  grave  to  inspire 
me.  She  fed  the  prophet  with  a  little  cake,  and  the  granaries 
of  heaven  nourished  her  barrel  of  meal;  she  gave  him  a  little 
water  in  a  vessel  to  drink,  and  the  olive-trees  of  Eden  seem  to 
bear  fruit  again  that  her  cruse  might  run  over  with  oil." 

It  is  in  that  manner  that  he  wrote  Pleasures  of 
Literature.  He  is  not  the  pedagogue,  but  the 
priest  proclaiming  the  revelation  of  God's  truth 
in  the  richest  language  at  his  command.  He 
stands  robed  in  his  pulpit,  and  adorns  his  dis- 
course with  the  rarest  gems  of  poetry  and 
the  most  gorgeous  decoration  of  scholarship. 
Whether  or  not  there  is  anything  new  in  his  mes- 
sage he  does  not  pause  to  consider;  the  only  thing 
that  matters  is  that  all  of  it  is  true. 

"  There  is  a  sound  of  solemn  sadness  in  the  saying  that  the 
glory  of  man  is  but  as  the  flower  of  grass — a  more  perishable 
thing  than  the  grass  itself,  more  alluring  to  the  eye,  but  exposed 
to  fiercer  enemies,  and  to  the  swifter  ruin  of  the  scythe.  They 
are  gone — the  tyrants  of  ancient  dynasties,  with  their  splendour 
and  cruelty— and  have  bequeathed  to  their  successors  the  warn- 
ing voice  of  the  prophet,  '  Where  will  ye  leave  your  glory  ?  ' 
Think  of  the  question  having  been  asked  of  Sesostris,  or  Bel- 


Untrotwctors  xix 

shazzar!  But  so  it  comes  to  pass.  Their  magnificence  is 
taken  off  like  robes  and  crowns  when  a  coronation  is  over. 
The  great  Conqueror  strikes  his  sword  into  life,  and  a  gulf 
yawns  between  Caesar  and  his  legions.  The  glory  remains  on 
this  side  of  the  chasm.  The  light  of  an  empire  dies  out,  like 
embers  on  a  cottager's  hearth.  All  the  flashing  shields  of 
Persia,  with  the  throne  of  Xerxes  in  the  midst,  could  not  cast 
one  ray  into  the  shadows.  How  is  the  King  to  summon  his 
guard  ?  What  bridges  may  swing  across  the  darkness  between 
eternity  and  time  ?  " 

Again : 

"  What  are  poets,  philosophers,  and  men  of  splendid  enter- 
prise, but  the  chivalry  of  Genius,  going  forth,  in  the  morning 
of  their  strength,  to  vanquish  enemies  of  virtue,  release  captive 
souls,  and  bring  back  treasures  of  renown  ?  How  dazzling  is 
the  march  with  Fame  in  the  van  !  Many  depart,  few  return. 
Some  die  in  battle  ;  some  are  borne  from  it  wounded ;  some 
triumph,  only  to  faint  in  the  desert  with  the  well  in  sight.  So 
the  tale  of  literature  has  its  toll  as  well  as  its  trumpet ;  the 
coronation  encloses  a  funeral  ;  and  the  banner  of  victory  droops 
over  the  bier  of  the  conqueror.  But  the  eyes  and  ears  of  the 
living  see  and  hear  only  the  rejoicings  and  the  honours  of  the 
departed.  The  trumpet  drowns  the  toll  ;  the  conflict  is  for- 
gotten in  the  conquest  ;  the  death  is  illuminated  by  the  crown. 
So  it  should  be.  As  one  plume  sinks,  another  eager  foot 
climbs  the  steep.  The  dead  ever  speak  to  the  weary,  ever 
cheer  the  brave,  ever  beckon  the  hopeful  to  the  temple,  that 
shines  with  its  own  inward  sun  and  glorifies  time  and 
thought." 

Lack  of  novelty  in  these  two  passages  may  be 
admitted  at  once,  but  was  the  truth  that  they 
contained  ever  expressed  more  richly? 

For  the  rest,  the  book  is  full  of  the  soundest 


XX 


Untrotmctors 


advice  to  those  who  are  fain  to  take  service  in  the 
Temple  of  Literature,  as  it  is  full  of  suggestion 
to  those  susceptible  but  uncreative  spirits  that 
would  worship  there  but  can  contribute  nothing 
to  its  armarium. 

11  The  exhibition  of  real  strength  is  never  grotesque.  Dis- 
tortion is  the  agony  of  weakness.  It  is  the  dislocated  mind 
whose  movements  are  spasmodic." 

There,  in  three  lines,  is  a  truth  the  considered 
application  of  which  might  prove  the  salvation  of 
modern  realism. 

Of  modern  criticism: 

1 '  If  there  be  in  it  little  of  the  splenetic  heart  of  a  former 
century,  we  find  abundance  of  untimely  fruit,  and  confident 
foreheads.  Its  defects  are  twofold, — a  want  of  modesty,  and 
a  want  of  knowledge.  A  remedy  for  the  former  is  to  be  found 
in  the  removal  of  the  latter.  A  short  novitiate  of  five  years 
would  sow  the  mind.  The  true  critic,  like  the  deep  philoso- 
pher, produces  his  opinions  as  doubts.  Only  the  astrologer 
and  the  ernpyric  never  fail." 

Many  are  the  epigrams  and  apologues  to  which 
one  would  like  to  direct  particular  attention. 

"  The  advantages  of  poetry  are  many,  as  its  pleasures  are 
common.  It  makes  dark  weather  fair,  and  blue  skies  bluer. 
The  dismallest  day— a  giant  of  clouds— sinks  before  it.  Not 
only  Shakespeare  and  Milton  bear  the  sling  ;  the  fatal  pebble 
may  be  taken  from  a  village  brook.  The  insolent  Philistine, 
who  lords  it  over  a  noble  spirit,  is  often  vanquished  and  plun- 
dered by  one  of  a  ruddy  countenance,  coming  from  the  coun- 
try and  thesheepfold." 


flntrotmcton?  xxi 

And  of  the  attractions  of  poetry  other  than 
intellectual : 

"Next  to  its  language  is  the  tone  of  its  voice.  It  makes 
love  to  the  ear,  and  wins  it  with  music." 

The  individual  charm  of  the  writing  throughout 
this  book  is  that  it  is  above  all  things  musical.  It 
gradually  enchains  the  interest  of  the  most  indif- 
ferent, and  it  haunts  the  memory  of  all.  And  the 
merit  of  the  performance  is  that  the  book  is  so 
much  better  than  a  catalogue  of  the  charms  of 
literature.  The  author  communicates  to  others 
the  sensations  which  have  vibrated  in  himself,  and 
infects  us  with  the  enthusiasm,  the  divine  posses- 
sion, which  has  been  the  motive  power  and  the 
supreme  delight  of  his  own  existence. 

CRANSTOUN  METCALFE. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGB 

I.  THE  DESIGN  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF 

THIS  DISCOURSE         ...         I 
II.  THE  LONG  LIFE  OF  BOOKS      .        .        5 
HI.  CLASSICAL    STUDIES:  THEIR    ASSO- 
CIATIONS AND  INTEREST      .  .        II 
IV.   MENTAL  DELIGHTS  OF  EARLY  LIFE    .         19 
V.  TASTE,  ITS  NATURE    AND  CHARMS     .         24 
VI.  TASTE,     AN     INHERITANCE     AND     A 

FASHION 29 

VII.   A  PURE  TASTE  SELDOM  FOUND  .         34 

VIII.      TASTE      PUTS     AN     AUTHOR     IN     A 

FAVOURABLE  LIGHT     .  .  .         4l 

IX.    BOOKS  WHICH  ARE   ADAPTED  TO  DIF- 
FERENT SEASONS          ...         47 
X.   DILIGENCE,    THE    HANDMAID     OF 

TASTE 52 

XI.   CRITICISM,  ITS  CURIOSITIES  AND  RE- 
SEARCHES ....         58 
xxiii 


xxiv  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XII.   CRITICISM      ENFORCES     UNITY      OF 

PURPOSE 75 

XIII.  CRITICISM  THE   SOURCE   OF   MANY 

DELIGHTS         ....  79 

XIV.  THE  LESSONS  OF  CRITICISM     .         .  89 
XV.  POETRY,  ITS  SHAPES  AND  BEAUTIES.  99 

XVI.    SATIRE  EXCLUDED  FROM  POETRY        .  I  17 
XVII.  THE    DRAMA,    ITS    CHARACTER    AND 

ENTERTAINMENT  .  .  .119 

XVIII.   THE  CONSOLATIONS  OF  POETRY           .  127 

xix.  FICTION:  THE   ROMANCE   AND   THE 

NOVEL     .         .         .         .         .136 

XX.   HISTORY  AND  ITS  LESSONS        .            .  153 
XXI.   HOME     VIEWS     OF     HISTORY — BIOG- 
RAPHY         169 

XXII.   LITERATURE  OF  THE  PULPIT     .  195 

XXIII.  PHILOSOPHY  AND  ITS  DELIGHTS           .  205 

XXIV.  THE  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES       .            .  2IO 
XXV.    DOMESTIC  INTERIORS  OF  LEARNING  215 

XXVI.   ACCOUNTABLENESS  OF  AUTHORS        .  225 
XXVII.     THE    CULTIVATED    MIND    AND    THE 

UNINFORMED      ....  232 

XXVIII.  THE  PARTING  WORD         .            .            .  237 


BOOKS    QUOTED 


24I 


"  I  CAN  wonder  at  nothing  more  than  how  a  man  can  be  idle 
— but  of  all  others,  a  scholar, — in  so  many  improvements  of 
reason,  in  such  sweetness  of  knowledge,  in  such  variety  of 
studies,  in  such  importunity  of  thoughts.  To  find  wit  in 
poetry;  in  philosophy,  profoundness;  in  history,  wonder  of 
events;  in  oratory,  sweet  eloquence;  in  divinity,  supernatural 
light  and  holy  devotion — as  so  many  rich  metals  in  their  pro- 
per mines, — whom  would  it  not  ravish  with  delight  ?  " 

BISHOP  HALL:  Epistle  to  Mr.  Milward. 

"  Comforts,  yea  !  joys  ineffable  they  find, 
Who  seek  the  prouder  pleasures  of  the  mind: 
The  soul,  collected  in  those  happy  hours, 
Then  makes  her  efforts,  then  enjoys  her  powers. 
No!  't  is  not  worldly  gain,  although,  by  chance, 
The  sons  of  learning  may  to  wealth  advance; 
Nor  station  high,  though  in  some  favouring  hour 
The  sons  of  learning  may  arrive  at  power; 
Nor  is  it  glory,  though  the  public  voice 
Of  honest  praise  will  make  the  heart  rejoice; 
But  't  is  the  mind's  own  feelings  give  the  joy, — 
Pleasures  she  gathers  in  her  own  employ." 

CRABBB;  Tht  Borough,  Letter  xxiv. 


PLEASURES 
OF    LITERATURE 

I 

THE  DESIGN  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  THIS 
DISCOURSE 

I  DO  not  propose  to  speak  of  Literature  in  the 
widest  sense,  as  including  everything  that 
requires  invention,  judgment,  or  industry,  but 
only  in  its  decorative  character.  For,  as  out  of 
three  primitive  colours  the  pencil  creates  nine, 
and  tints  and  shades  innumerable,  so  from  the 
elements  of  poetry,  eloquence,  and  philosophy, 
the  variegated  graces  of  the  divine,  the  historian, 
and  the  novelist  are  composed.  Bacon  referred 
the  three  parts  of  learning  to  the  corresponding 
qualities  of  the  intellect :  history  to  the  memory, 
poetry  to  the  imagination,  and  philosophy  to  the 


2  pleasures  of  ^Literature 

reason.  My  subject  is  the  ornamental  in  know- 
ledge. But  since  the  criterion  of  usefulness  is 
found  in  the  result,  whatever  is  beautiful  is  also 
profitable.  The  pictures  of  Raffaelle  teach  vir- 
tue, and  a  sermon  of  Taylor  is  more  binding  than 
an  act  of  Parliament. 

A  discourse  upon  literature  is  like  a  landscape 
seen  from  a  hill.  Only  here  and  there  may  we 
hope  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  great  river  of  learn- 
ing, "whose  head,  being  far  in  the  land,  is,  at  first 
rising,  little  and  easily  viewed;  but  still,  as  you 
go,  it  gapeth  with  a  wider  bank — not  without 
pleasure  and  delightful  winding — while  it  is  on 
both  sides  set  with  trees  and  the  beauty  of  various 
flowers;  but  still,  the  farther  you  follow  it,  the 
deeper  and  the  broader  it  is,  till,  at  last,  it  en- 
waves  itself  in  the  unfathomed  ocean."  We  shall 
have  clearer  impressions  of  what  we  see,  in  pro- 
portion as  our  gaze  is  patient  and  our  objects 
are  few. 

Science  is  not  embraced  in  the  pleasures  of  lit- 
erature. Refined  readers  and  noble  authors  are 
made  without  it.  Ingenuity  has  endeavoured  to 
show  its  healthful  influence  on  the  inventive 
faculty;  and  a  biographer  of  Tasso  traces  his  lucid 
method  to  this  harsher  erudition,  and  the  intri- 


H>esi0n  ant>  ^Limitations  3 

cacy  of  Spenser  to  the  neglect  of  it.  Virgil  and 
Milton  are  called  as  witnesses  for  the  argument; 
but  he  who  sees  the  symmetry  of  the  SEneid,  in  the 
geometry  of  the  author,  could  account  for  the 
rural  sweetness  of  the  Elegy  by  the  botany  of 
Gray.  Genius  finds  its  own  road,  and  carries  its 
own  lamp.  The  fourth  proposition  of  Euclid 
troubled  Alfieri  for  several  years,  yet  he  could 
construct  a  story,  and  reason  in  verse.  Fleury 
might  question  the  usefulness  of  logic,  when  he 
observed  so  many  people  arguing  well  who  did 
not  know  it,  and  badly  who  did. 

Mathematical  studies  have  one  leading  defect: 
they  engage  the  understanding  without  nourish- 
ing it,  and  often  resemble  an  elaborate  mechanism 
to  convey  water,  without  a  spring  or  a  reservoir 
to  feed  the  pipes.  In  moral  impression  they  are 
powerless.  Burnet  puts  this  objection  with  force: 
"Learning  chiefly  in  mathematical  sciences  can 
so  swallow  up  one's  thought  as  to  possess  it  en- 
tirely for  some  time;  but  when  that  amusement 
is  over,  nature  will  return,  and  be  where  it  was, 
being  rather  diverted  than  overcome  by  such 
speculations."  These,  among  other  reasons,  in- 
duced Bossuet  to  banish  science  from  theological 
studies,  and  Fe*nelon  to  turn  from  what  he  called 


4  pleasures  of  Xiterature 

the  diabolism  of  Euclid.  We  have  the  humili- 
ating confession  of  a  most  famous  English 
astronomer,  to  serve  as  a  note  for  the  poetical 
lamentation,  that 

"  Never  yet  did  phflosophk  tube, 

That  brings  the  planets  home  into  the  eye 

Of  observation,  and  discovers — else 

Not  visible — His  family  of  worlds, 

Discover  Him  that  rules  them:  such  a  veil 

Hangs  over  mortal  eyes,  blind  from  the  birth. 

And  dark  in  things  divine." 

Cowper  pursuing,  with  the  eyes  of  devotion  and 
love,  the  summer  sun  as  it  set  over  the  village 
spire  of  Emberton,  may  have  felt  his  heart  swell- 
ing with  a  grander  sense  of  the  Creator's  glory 
than  has  often  quickened  the  pulse  of  all  the 
watchers  of  the  stars,  from  the  Chaldeans  to 
Herschd. 


II 

THE  LONG  LIFE  OF  BOOKS 

THERE  are  two  aspects  under  which  we  might 
regard  language  as  a  channel  for  communi- 
cating instruction  and  pleasure.  One  would  be 
Sj3lech.  How  astonishing  it  is  to  know  that  a 
man  may  stand  in  the  crowd  of  learned  or  igno- 
rant, thoughtful  or  reckless  hearers — all  the  ele- 
ments of  reason  and  passion  tumultuously  tossed 
together — and  knock  at  the  door  of  each  heart  in 
succession!  Think  how  this  wonder  has  been 
wrought  already.  By  Demosthenes  waving  the 
stormy  democracy  into  a  calm,  from  a  sunny  hill- 
side; by  Plato  enchaining  the  souls  of  his  disciples 
under  the  boughs  of  a  dim  plane  tree;  by  Qcero 
in  the  stern  silence  of  the  Forum;  by  our  own 
Sheridan  in  the  chapel  of  St.  Stephen.  They 
knocked  and  entered;  wandered  through  the 
bosoms  of  their  hearers;  threaded  the  dark  laby- 
rinths of  feeling;  aroused  the  fiercest  passions  in 
their  lone  concealment.  They  did  more.  In 

5 


6  pleasures  of  literature 

every  heart  they  erected  a  throne,  and  gave  laws. 
The  Athenian  populace  started  up  with  one  ac- 
cord and  one  cry  to  march  upon  Philip;  the  Sen- 
ate throbbed  with  indignation  at  Catiline;  and 
the  British  Parliament  was  dissolved  for  a  few 
hours,  that  it  might  recover  from  the  wand  of 
the  enchanter. 

But  it  is  in  the  second  manifestation  of  lan- 
guage that  the  most  marvellous  faculty  resides: 
the  written  outlives  and  outdazzles  the  spoken 
word.  The  life  of  rhetoric  perishes  with  the 
rhetorician ;  it  darkens  with  his  eye,  stiffens  with 
his  hand,  freezes  with  his  tongue.  The  bows  of 
eloquence  are  buried  with  the  archers.  Where  is 
the  splendid  declamation  of  Bolingbroke?  It  has 
vanished  like  his  own  image  from  the  grass-plots 
of  Twickenham. 

That  intellect  to  which  the  printing-press  gives 
a  body,  an  unquenchable  spirit  inhabits.  Litera- 
ture is  the  immortality  of  speech.  It  embalms 
for  all  ages  the  departed  kings  of  learning,  and 
watches  over  their  repose  in  the  eternal  pyra- 
mids of  fame.  The  sumptuous  cities  which  have 
lighted  the  world  since  the  beginning  of  time  are 
now  beheld  only  in  the  pictures  of  the  historian  or 
the  poet.  Homer  rebuilds  Troy,  and  Thucydides 


SLong  OLife  ot  JBoofcs  7 

renews  the  war  of  Peloponnesus.  The  dart  that 
pierced  the  Persian  breastplate  moulders  in  the 
dust  of  Marathon ;  but  the  arrow  of  Pindar  quiv- 
ers, at  this  hour,  with  the  life  of  his  bow;  like  the 
discus  of  Hippomedon — 

"  Jamque  procul  meminit  dextrae,  servatque  tenorem." 

We  look  with  grateful  eyes  upon  this  preser- 
vative power  of  literature.  When  the  Gothic 
night  descended  over  Europe,  Virgil  and  Livy 
were  nearly  forgotten  and  unknown;  but  far 
away,  in  lone  corners  of  the  earth,  amid  silence 
and  shadow,  the  ritual  of  genius  continued  to  be 
solemnised:  without  were  barbarism,  storm,  and 
darkness;  within,  light,  fragrance,  and  music. 
So  the  sacred  fire  of  learning  burned  upon  its 
scattered  shrines,  until  torch  after  torch  carried 
the  flame  over  the  world. 

One  of  the  Spanish  romancers  shows  Cydippe 
contemplating  herself  in  a  glass,  and  the  power 
of  Venus  making  the  reflection  permanent.  The 
fable  has  a  new  and  a  pleasanter  reading  in  the 
history  of  literature.  A  book  becomes  a  mirror, 
with  the  author's  face  upon  it.  Talent  only  gives 
an  imperfect  image — the  broken  glimmer  of  a 
countenance.  But  the  features  of  Genius  remain 
unruffled.  Time  guards  the  shadow.  Beauty, 


8  pleasures  of  literature 

the  spiritual  Venus— whose  children  are  the 
Tassos,  the  Spensers,  the  Bacons— breathes  the 
magic  of  her  love,  and  fixes  the  face  for  ever. 

These  glasses  of  fancy,  eloquence,  or  wisdom, 
possess  a  strange  power.  Illuminated  by  the  sun 
of  fame,  they  throw  rays  on  watchful  and  rever- 
ent admirers.  The  beholder  carries  away  some 
of  the  gilding  lustre.  And  thus  it  happens  that 
the  light  of  genius  never  dies,  but  sheds  itself 
over  other  faces  in  different  hues  of  splendour. 
Homer  shines  in  the  softened  beauty  of  Virgil, 
and  Spenser  revives  in  the  decorated  learning  of 
Gray. 

Art  has  been  less  happy  in  its  self-protection. 
Look  at  Correggio's  Notte  where  the  light 
breaks  from  the  Heavenly  Child.  Towards  the 
close  of  the  last  century,  a  director  of  the  Dresden 
Gallery  removed  the  toning,  and  deprived  the 
picture  of  one  of  its  fairest  charms.  Fifty  years 
ago,  observers  complained  that  the  colour  was 
gone  from  the  Cornaro  Family  of  Titian.  The 
Helen  of  Homer  and  the  Faery  Queen  of  Spenser 
are  safe  from  such  a  catastrophe.  Lalage  has  not 
lost  a  dimple.  The  tears  still  glisten  in  the  eyes 
of  Erminia.  The  coarsest  rubbings  of  critical 
pens,  or  the  harsher  resolvents  of  digamma  and 


%ife  of  Boofes 


allegory,  have  left  the  features,  and  even  the 
bloom  of  expression,  unimpaired. 

The  poem,  or  the  history,  is  also,  for  the  most 
part,  guarded  from  the  restorer.  Lord  Orford 
told  Gilpin  that  the  great  Vandyck  at  Wilton  had 
been  retouched  by  an  inferior  pencil,  to  which 
some  of  its  discord  of  colours  may  be  attributed. 
Dryden  constructed  a  graceful  allegory  of  Time, 
leaning  over  the  work  of  a  great  master,  with  that 
ready  pencil  and  ripening  hand  which 

"  Mellow  the  colours  and  imbrown  the  tint." 

But  Pope  wrote  the  true  story  of  art  when  he 
said,  with  the  exquisite  taste  and  feeling  with 
which  he  always  spoke  of  painters,  as  Milton  of 
music,  and  Thomson  of  scenery: 

"So  when  the  faithful  pencil  has  designed 
Some  bright  idea  of  the  master's  mind, 
When  a  new  world  leaps  out  at  his  command 
And  ready  nature  waits  upon  his  hand; 
When  the  ripe  colours  soften  and  unite, 
And  sweetly  melt  into  just  shade  and  light; 
When  mellowing  years  their  full  perfection  give, 
And  each  bold  figure  just  begins  to  live, 
The  treacherous  colours  the  fair  art  betray, 
And  all  the  bright  creation  fades  away." 

It  is  not  pretended  that  the  genius  of  the  pen  is 


io          pleasures  of  ^Literature 

safe  from  all  casualties  that  beset  his  brother  of 
the  pencil.  I  have  not  forgotten  Hume's  letter  to 
Robertson  about  the  gentleman  who,  sending  for  a 
pound  of  raisins,  received  them  wrapped  up  in  the 
doctor's  highly  drawn  character  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth. Literature  has  its  complaint  as  well  as  its 
paean.  The  splendid  libraries  of  Rome  are  con- 
sumed by  fire,  and  the  unknown  treasures  of 
Greece  perish  in  the  sack  of  Constantinople.  Still 
the  poet  and  the  historian  maintain  their  suprem- 
acy over  the  artist  and  the  sculptor.  A  mob  shat- 
ters into  dust  that  statue  of  Minerva  whose  limbs 
seemed  to  breathe  under  the  flowing  robe,  and 
her  lips  to  move;  but  the  fierceness  of  the  Goth, 
the  ignorance  of  the  Crusader,  and  the  frenzy  of 
the  polemic,  have  not  destroyed  nor  mutilated 
Penelope  and  Electra.  Apelles  dies;  /Eschylus 
lives.  And  if  we  have  lost  Phidias,  Homer  gives 
us  a  Jupiter  in  gold. 


Ill 

CLASSICAL  STUDIES:  THEIR  ASSOCIA- 
TIONS AND  INTEREST 

COWPERsaid: 
"  Books  are  not  seldom  talismans  and  spells." 

This  charm  dwells  especially  in  Greek  and  Latin 
writers.  Much  of  it  is  owing  to  the  season  when 
they  are  put  into  our  hands.  Life  is  a  garden  of 
romance,  and  every  day 

"  An  idyll  with  Boccaccio's  spirit  warm." 
Our  eyes  lend  their  brightness  to  the  things  they 
look  upon.  The  book  is  endeared  by  the  friends 
and  the  pleasure  it  recalls.  This  feeling  of  re- 
membrance often  dims  the  eye  of  riper  manhood, 
as  it  recognises  the  worn-out  school  Horace,  with 
its  familiar  marks.  Silent  lips  and  cold  hands 
seem  again  to  welcome  and  clasp  us: 

"  Up  springs  at  every  step,  to  claim  a  tear, 
Some  little  friendship  formed  and  cherished  here  ; 
And  not  the  lightest  leaf  but  trembling  teems 
With  golden  visions  and  romantic  dreams." 
XI 


12          pleasures  of  literature 

Association  is  the  delight  of  the  heart,  not  less 
than  of  poetry.  Alison  observes  that  an  autumn 
sunset,  with  its  crimson  clouds,  glimmering  trunks 
of  trees,  and  wavering  tints  upon  the  grass,  seems 
scarcely  capable  of  embellishment.  But  if  in  this 
calm  and  beautiful  glow  the  chime  of  a  distant 
bell  steal  over  the  fields,  the  bosom  heaves  with 
the  sensation  that  Dante  so  tenderly  describes. 
The  pensive  joy  of  the  student  is  awakened  in  the 
same  manner.  The  clock  of  time,  measuring  the 
hours  of  life's  departing  day,  strikes  mournfully 
over  the  landscape  of  years.  He  remembers 
whom  and  what  he  has  lost. 

Even  without  this  sympathy  of  association, 
classic  story  and  fancy  have  a  livelier  interest 
than  modern;  they  are  shaded  by  the  twilight  into 
which  they  are  withdrawn.  Delille  indicated  the 
defect  of  the  Henriade  by  saying  that  it  was  too 
near  to  the  eye  and  the  age.  It  has  been  sug- 
gested that  Milton  might  have  thrown  his  angelic 
warfare  into  remoter  perspective.  The  fame  of  a 
battlefield  grows  with  years.  Napoleon  storming 
the  bridge  of  Lodi,  and  Wellington  surveying  the 
towers  of  Salamanca,  affect  us  with  fainter  emo- 
tions than  Brutus  reading  in  his  tent  at  Philippi, 
or  Richard  bearing  down  with  the  English  chiv- 


Classical  Studies  13 

airy  upon  the  white  armies  of  Saladin.  Nelson 
leading  the  line  of  warships  against  Copenhagen 
is  less  picturesque  than  Drake  crowding  his  can- 
vas after  the  galleons  of  Spain.  One  fleet  lies 
under  our  eye;  the  other  is  enveloped  in  mist,  and, 

"  far  off  at  sea  descried, 
Hangs  in  the  clouds." 

As  we  grow  older,  the  poet  and  the  historian  of 
our  boyhood  and  youth  become  dearer.  The 
thyme  of  Theocritus  is  wafted  over  the  memory 
with  a  refreshing  perfume.  By  a  sort  of  natural 
magic,  we  raise  the  ghost  of  each  intellectual 
pleasure,  and  make  it  appear  without  any  depen- 
dence upon  climate  or  time.  The  mind's  theatre 
is  lighted  for  the  pageant  of  old  learning  to  march 
through  it,  with  all  its  pomp  and  music.  The 
nightingale  of  Colonos  enjoys  a  perpetual  May  in 
Sophocles.  Pindar  beguiles  the  loneliness  of 
Cowley;  while  Horace  lulls  asleep  the  cares  of 
Sanderson,  and  the  domestic  miseries  of  Hooker. 

Unlike  science,  literature  is  not  inductive.  Its 
secrets  are  never  discovered  by  scholars,  tracking 
obscure  hints  which  nature,  or  their  ancestors,  had 
dropped.  A  basket,  left  on  the  ground  and  over- 
grown by  acanthus,  suggests  the  Corinthian  cap- 


i4          pleasures  of  literature 

ital;  the  contemplation  of  the  sun's  rays  along 
a  wall  produces  the  achromatic  telescope;  the 
movements  of  a  frog  reveal  the  wonders  of  gal- 
vanism ;  and  an  idle  boy  shows  the  way  to  per- 
fect the  steam-engine.  Nothing  of  this  kind  has 
happened  in  literature.  The  Egyptian  lake,  in 
which  some  eyes  see  the  source  of  the  old  Greek 
streams,  ever  melts  into  bluer  distance,  like  the 
water-mist  of  the  desert.  The  epic  begins  with 
the  Iliad.  The  curtain  rises  from  the  Agamem- 
non of  /Eschylus;  Pitt  borrows  of  Demosthenes; 
Robertson  does  not  heighten  the  colours  of  Livy, 
nor  Montesquieu  outgaze  the  sagacity  of  Tacitus. 
The  Homeric  poems  are  the  pleasures  of  lit- 
erature in  an  abridgment.  They  are  the  sap 
circulating  through  every  leaf  of  the  tree  of  know- 
ledge, and  shedding  blossoms  on  the  furthest 
bough.  Homer,  than  dramatists  more  dramatic, 
was  the  founder  of  the  theatre,  and  peopled  the 
stage.  The  Greek  tragedy  is  the  epic  recast; 
the  narrative  being  broken  into  dialogue,  and  the 
poet  disappearing  in  the  chorus.  All  the  gentler 
shapes  of  fancy,  seen  in  the  lyrical  poetry  of 
Greece,  were  only  flowers  growing  round  his  mas- 
sive trunk,  and  sheltered  by  the  majesty  of  his 
shade. 


Classical  Studies  15 

Nor  in  verse  alone  was  his  presence  perceived 
and  felt.  See,  in  the  wide-flowing  stream  of 
Plato's  philosophy,  the  rich  fruits  of  the  poet's 
imagination,  pouring  down  into  the  transparent 
depths  the  reflected  shadows  of  their  beauty.  The 
ear  catches  the  epic  tune  in  the  simpler  melodies 
of  Herodotus.  It  is  easy  to  tell  why  Arnold's 
eyes  are  filled  with  tears  at  the  story  of  Cleobis 
and  Biton,  rewarded  for  their  filial  piety  by  fall- 
ing asleep  in  the  temple,  and  dying  together;  and 
why  he  sat  by  the  bed  of  his  dying  sister,  trans- 
lating whole  books  into  the  quainter  English  of 
old  chronicles. 

The  same  undercurrent  of  song  sometimes 
freshens  the  dry  track  of  Aristotle's  severe  in- 
quiries, and  betrays  its  hidden  course  by  unex- 
pected flushes  of  verdure  and  bloom  over  the  hard 
surface.  Himself  the  subject  of  all  criticism,  he 
let  down  from  his  heaven  of  starry  thoughts  the 
scales  in  which  his  own  genius  was  to  be  weighed. 
And  whosoever,  in  this  calm  weather  of  refine- 
ment and  civilisation,  sets  out  upon  a  voyage  of 
poetical  discovery,  or  pleasure,  is 

"  Led  by  the  light  of  the  Mzeonian  star." 

If  we  turn  to  romance,  we  see  its  green  world 


1 6          pleasures  of  ^Literature 

of  beauty,  pathos,  and  wisdom,  rising  from 
the  fruitful  waves  of  the  Homeric  inundation. 
Achilles,  Hector,  and  Ulysses,  present  outlines 
of  every  hero  who  has  won  admiration,  or  drawn 
tears.  The  two  former  embody,  in  outward 
grace  and  vigour,  the  dreams,  the  enterprise,  and 
the  affections  of  bright  and  passionate  manhood; 
the  latter  is  a  type  of  the  tried  spirit,  educated  and 
ennobled  by  difficulties  endured  and  overcome. 

Let  Homer  signify  "a  faithful  witness";  and 
who,  in  portraying  the  glory,  or  the  shame,  of  the 
manly  or  the  womanly  heart,  is  more  eloquent  or 
true?  The  Odyssey  is  a  circulating  library  in  one 
volume.  All  lights  and  shades  of  fiction  chase 
each  other  along  the  page.  The  border  story,  the 
exploits  of  chivalry,  the  fairy  legend,  the  solemn 
allegory,  the  picture  of  manners,  the  laughter- 
moving  sketch— «ach  drops,  in  turn,  from  the 
mysterious  lips  of  the  Asiatic  Shakespeare.  A 
thousand  costly  morals  are  treasured  in  Tele- 
machus  conducted  by  Mentor.  What  countless 
Ladies  of  Shalott  have  descended  from  Calypso, 
who,  in  her  lonely  island  of  the  purple  sea, 

"  Busied  with  the  loom,  and  plying  fast 
Her  golden  shuttle,  with  melodious  voice 
Sat  chaunting  there." 


Classical  Studies  17 

The  Homeric  characters  live  and  walk  among 
us.  Thersites  grumbles  and  sneers ;  Ulysses  con- 
stantly finds  his  way  home,  as  the  fortunate  ad- 
venturer; and  Penelope  has  been  reappearing, 
for  the  last  two  centuries,  in  the  deserted  or  the 
tempted  wife. 

The  key  of  the  supernatural,  which  in  later 
times  unlocked  the  haunted  chambers  of  Udol- 
pho,  was  certainly  held  by  him  who  caused  Mount 
Ida,  the  Greek  fleet,  and  the  Trojan  city  to  trem- 
ble all  over  as  the  gods  came  down  into  battle. 
And  not  very  obscurely  may  be  seen  rising  over 
the  epic  mist  the  battlements  of  that  castle 
which,  as  we  learn  from  Gray,  made  Cambridge 
men  "in  general  afraid  to  go  to  bed  o'  nights." 
The  ghost  of  Alphonso,  growing  every  moment 
gigantic  in  the  moonlight,  is  not  conceived  with 
so  fearful  a  sweep  of  Gothic  magnificence  as  the 
enormous  stride  of  Achilles  in  the  world  of  spirits, 
when  he  heard  that  the  son  was  worthy  of  the 
father.  The  poet's  Hades  had  mightier  and 
stranger  inhabitants  than  Otranto.  Even  the 
school  of  horrors  may  date  its  beginning  from  the 
cave  of  Polyphemus,  when  the  spear  of  olive 
wood  hissed  in  the  flaming  socket  of  his  lost  eye. 
Reckon  up  the  enchantments  of  Circe;  the  escape 


1 8          pleasures  of  ^Literature 

from  the  Sirens;  affection  in  humble  life,  as  ex- 
hibited by  Eumaeus;  the  retributive  frenzy  sent 
upon  the  suitors  of  Penelope,  and  the  bending  of 
the  wonderful  bow.  Call  to  mind  those  delicious 
scenes  from  nature,  which  make  the  reading  of 
his  verses  to  be  like  opening  a  window  into  a  gar- 
den, when  the  south  wind  fans  the  roses  up  the 
wall;  think  over  his  noble  sentiments,  and  his 
lessons  of  wisdom,  generosity,  and  patience;  com- 
pare his  poetical  fire — swallowing  everything  base 
in  its  mighty  rush — with  the  mild  lustre  of  Virgil, 
the  artificial  glow  of  Milton,  or  the  accidental 
flames  of  Shakespeare;  and  confess  that  Homer 
is  not  only  the  poet,  but  the  historian,  the  phi- 
losopher, the  painter,  the  critic,  and  the  romancer 
of  the  world. 


IV 

MENTAL  DELIGHTS  OF  EARLY  LIFE 

THERE  is  one  pleasure  of  literature  that  fades 
almost  as  quickly  as  it  blooms.  I  mean  the 
intensity  of  belief  in  what  we  read;  when,  turning 
our  mind  adrift  upon  a  story,  we  glide,  according 
to  its  will,  beside  overhanging  gardens,  or  twilight 
depths  of  trees,  until,  floated  beyond  the  colours 
and  sounds  of  common  life,  we  find  ourselves 
under 

"  Magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn." 

Dugald  Stewart  thought  that  his  relish  for  tales 
of  wonder  was  not  less  lively  in  the  decline  of  his 
life  than  it  had  been  in  the  beginning;  and  he  did 
not  value  the  amusement  which  they  afforded 
him  the  less  because  his  reason  taught  him  to 
regard  them  as  vehicles  of  entertainment,  not  as 
articles  of  faith.  His  explanation  refutes  itself. 
The  sense  of  reality  gives  the  charm.  Introduce 
19 


pleasures  of  OLtterature 

judgment,  and  the  spell  is  broken.    Theundoubt- 
L  mind,  which  Collins  bestowed  upon  Tasso  i 
the  characteristic  only  of  the  great  poet   or  the 
youngest  reader.     Romance  is  the  truth  of  imag- 
Ltion  and  boyhood.     Homer's  horses  clear  the 
world  with  a  bound.    The  child's  eye  needs  no 
horizon  to  its  prospect.    An  Oriental  tale  is  not 
too  vast      Pearls  dropping  from  trees  are 
falling  leaves  in  autumn.    The  palace  that  grew 
up  in  a  night  merely  awakens  a  wish  to  live  in  it. 
The  impossibilities  of  fifty  years  are  the  comm 

places  of  five. 

What  philosopher  of  the  schoolroom,  with 
mental  dowry  of  four  summers,  ever  questions 
the  power  of  the  wand  that  opened  the  dark  eyes 
of  the  beautiful  princess,  or  subtracts  a   single 
inch  from  the  stride  of  seven  leagues?    The  Giant- 
killer  with  the  familiar  name  has  the  boy's  whole 
heart.    And  if  Johnson  in  anger  put  down  a  little 
girl  from  his  knee  who  had  never  read  Pilgrims 
Progress,  what  a  frown  would  he  have  cast  upon 
her  whose  tears  of  joy  do  not  trickle  over  the  Glass 
Slipper!    Burke  expresses    the    sentiments    of 
many  hearts:  "1  despair  of  ever  receiving  the 
same  degree  of  pleasure  from  the  most  exalted 
performances  of  genius  which  1  felt  at  that  age 


flDental  E>eU0bts  of  JEarlp  2Ufe     21 


from  pieces  which  my  present  judgment  regards 
as  trifling  and  contemptible." 

The  first  and  the  last  days  of  life  have,  in- 
deed, one  sentiment  in  common.  A  book  inter- 
ests in  proportion  as  it  surprises  us.  When  a  friend 
entered  the  library  of  Gray,  he  found  him  ab- 
sorbed in  the  newspaper.  It  contained  the  open- 
ing letter  of  Junius.  That  venomous  glitter  of 
eye  had  the  fascination  of  a  discovery.  Boccac- 
cio, climbing  by  a  ladder  to  the  grass-grown  loft 
of  a  monastery,  to  disinter  a  classic  fragment 
from  the  dusty  parchments,  and  Petrarch  feasting 
his  eyes  on  a  Quinctilian  —  just  brought  into  day- 
light —  exhibit  the  sentiment  in  a  more  agreeable 
shape.  The  remark  applies  with  equal  truth  to 
scenery,  or  remains  of  antiquity:  whether  Raffa- 
elle  lingers  over  the  outline  of  a  Greek  head  upon 
a  medal,  or  Poussin  recognises  some  faintly  de- 
fined feature  of  a  leaf,  by  which  he  may  give  its 
portrait  with  all  the  accuracy  of  a  botanist.  In 
each  case  the  key  to  the  delight  is  to  be  found  in 
the  surprise;  and  the  boy  and  the  sage  read  a 
book  by  the  same  light.  But,  however  lively  may 
be  the  enjoyment  of  taste  unexpectedly  gratified, 
it  is  weak  in  comparison  with  that  vivid  sense  of 
happiness  and  wonder  which  quickens  the  pulse 


22          pleasures  of  Xiterature 

and  brightens  the  eye  of  intelligent  childhood. 
The  feeling  is  unconsciously  expressed  by  the  poet 
who  spoke  of  his  own  rapture  and  amazement  on 
first  looking  into  Chapman's  Homer: 

"Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies, 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken; 

Or  like  stout  Cortes  when,  with  eagle  eyes, 
He  stared  at  the  Pacific— and  all  his  men 

Looked  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise — 
Silent  upon  a  peak  in  Darien." 

The  reader  is  surrounded  by  a  new  creation. 
The  poem  and  the  tale  in  youth  are  like  Adam's 
early  walk  in  the  Garden.  In  the  beautiful  words 
of  Burke,  "The  senses  are  unworn  and  tender,  and 
the  whole  frame  is  awake  in  every  part."  The 
dew  lies  upon  the  grass.  No  smoke  of  busy  life 
has  darkened  or  stained  the  morning  of  our  day. 
The  pure  air  breathes  about  us.  If  any  mist  hap- 
pen to  rise,  the  sunbeam  of  hope  catches  and 
paints  it.  The  cloudy  weather  melts  in  beauty, 
and  the  brightest  smiles  of  the  earth  are  born  of 
its  tears. 

A  first  book  has  some  of  the  sweetness  of  a  first 
love.  The  music  of  the  soul  passes  into  it.  The 
unspotted  eye  illuminates  it.  Defects  are  unob- 
served, and  sometimes  grow  even  pleasing  from 


/Rental  2>eU0bts  ot  Barls  Xife     23 

their  connection  with  an  object  that  is  dear;  like 
the  oblique  eye  in  the  girl  to  whom  Descartes  was 
attached.  Later  surprises  will  amuse,  and  deeper 
sympathies  may  cheer  us  up,  but  the  charm  loses 
its  freshness,  and  the  tenderness  some  of  the  balm. 
Perhaps  the  loving  admiration  of  Virgil,  in 
what  are  called  the  dark  times  of  literature,  is  to 
be  explained  on  this  principle.  The  dawn  of  civ- 
ilisation is  the  childhood  of  a  people.  The  /Eneid 
was  the  fairy  tale  and  Virgil  was  the  enchanter 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  revival  of  learning  gave 
to  it  all  the  sparkle  of  surprise.  A  costly  book 
was  the  home  of  a  magician.  It  cast  rays  from 
every  page,  as  from  a  window.  A  scholar,  emerg- 
ing from  mediaeval  ignorance,  and  coming  sud- 
denly upon  one  of  these  illuminated  palaces  of 
fancy,  was  like  a  wayfarer,  whose  dismal  road  of 
snow  and  tempest  brought  him  in  the  evening, 
full  of  joy  and  reverence,  to  the  gate  of  a  lighted 
abbey. 


LITERATURE  has  two  eyes— Taste  and  Crit- 
icism. Without  these  the  book  is  cold  and 
dark  as  the  greenest  landscape  to  a  man  that  is 
blind.  The  best  definition  of  taste  was  given  by 
the  earliest  editor  of  Spenser  who  proved  himself 
to  possess  any,  when  he  called  it  a  kind  of  extem- 
pore judgment.  Burke's  view  was  not  dissimilar. 
He  explained  it  to  be  an  instinct  which  immedi- 
ately awakes  the  emotion  of  pleasure,  or  dislike. 
Akenside  is  clear,  as  he  is  poetical,  in  his  reply  to 
the  question : 

"  What,  then,  is  Taste  but  these  internal  powers 
Active,  and  strong,  and  feelingly  alive 
To  each  fine  impulse  ?  a  discerning  sense 
Of  decent  and  sublime,  with  quick  disgust 
From  things  deformed,  or  disarranged,  or  gross 
In  species?    This  nor  gems,  nor  stores  of  gold, 
Nor  purple  state,  nor  culture,  can  bestow, 
But  God  alone,  when  first  His  active  hand 
Imprints  the  secret  bias  of  the  soul." 
24 


Uaste— Bature  ant>  Cbarms        25 

We  may  consider  taste,  therefore,  to  be  a  set- 
tled habit  of  discerning  faults  and  excellences  in 
a  moment — the  mind's  independent  expression 
of  approval  or  aversion.  It  is  that  faculty  by 
which  we  discover  and  enjoy  the  beautiful,  the 
picturesque,  and  the  sublime,  in  literature, 
art,  and  nature;  which  recognises  a  noble 
thought,  as  a  virtuous  mind  welcomes  a  pure 
sentiment,  by  an  involuntary  glow  of  satisfaction. 
But,  while  the  principle  of  perception  is  inherent 
in  the  soul,  it  requires  a  certain  amount  of 
knowledge  to  draw  out  and  direct  it.  The  utter- 
most ignorance  has  no  curiosity.  Captain  Cook 
met  with  some  savages  who  entirely  disregarded 
his  ship — the  first  they  had  ever  seen  — as  it 
sailed  by  them. 

Taste  is  not  stationary.  It  grows  every  day, 
and  is  improved  by  cultivation,  as  a  good  temper 
is  refined  by  religion.  In  its  most  advanced  state 
it  takes  the  title  of  judgment.  Hume  quotes 
Fontenelle's  ingenious  distinction  between  the 
common  watch  that  tells  the  hours  and  the  deli- 
cately constructed  watch  that  marks  the  seconds 
and  smallest  differences  of  time. 

A  taste  enriched  by  observation  and  learning, 
sensitive  to  the  most  delicate  tremble  of  the  bal- 


26          pleasures  ot  ^Literature 

ance,  is  one  of  the  choicest  endowments  of  the 
understanding.  It  enjoys  some  of  the  humbler 
qualities  of  invention.  It  brings  a  dim  meaning 
into  light,  and  not  only  beholds  the  image,  or  the 
argument,  but  gazes  beyond  them  into  the  rudi- 
ments of  their  creation;  identifying  itself  with 
the  author — seeing  what  he  saw,  and  feeling  what 
he  felt.  It  enters  readily  into  the  reply  of  Paul 
Veronese  to  a  person  who  asked  him  why  some 
figures  appeared  in  shade:  "A  cloud  is  passing 
over  the  sky,  and  darkens  the  picture."  An- 
other example  will  show  this  power  of  taste  still 
more  clearly.  In  Raflfaelle's  Burning  of  Borgbo 
Veccloio  the  dresses  of  the  people  who  carry 
water  toss  in  the  wind;  an  ordinary  observer  per- 
ceives nothing  in  the  circumstance,  but  a  finer 
sight  learns  from  it  that  the  conflagration  is  ris- 
ing with  the  gale,  and  that  the  flames  will  conquer. 
These  forward,  inward,  and  backward  looks 
are  the  motion  and  life  of  taste.  When  that  eye 
of  the  intellect  is  closed,  or  injured,  the  majesty 
of  genius  is  obscured,  or  broken.  Men  of  bright- 
est thoughts,  walking  abroad  in  their  books,  are 
unknown  by  the  crowd.  The  muse  who  inspired 
them  conceals,  with  a  thick  mist,  their  shape  and 
features  from  the  rude  stare  of  the  by-standers— 


Uaste— "Wature  anfc  Cbarms        27 

as  the  Olympian  Lady  enveloped  the  Trojans  in 
the  palace  of  Dido — to  dawn  upon  the  friendly 
and  purified  eyes  of  reflective  taste,  in  the  fresh 
bloom  of  beauty,  and  in  the  perfect  gracefulness 
of  form. 

Moliere  might  read  a  comedy  to  his  old  servant, 
and  alter  it  according  to  the  effect  which  it  pro- 
duced upon  her,  but  her  opinion  could  be  useful 
only  in  sketches  of  manners,  or  descriptions  of 
natural  feelings.  Suppose  that  the  grandest  pic- 
tures of  Dante,  or  /Eschylus,  had  been  exhibited, 
and  her  decision  on  their  comparative  merits 
desired;  the  poet  would  have  been  a  judge  leav- 
ing his  court  to  consult  the  crier  on  a  question  of 
law.  There  is  a  familiar  story  of  a  Scottish  noble- 
man finding  one  of  his  shepherds  in  a  field  poring 
over  Paradise  Lost,  and  asking  him  what  book 
he  was  reading — "Please  your  lordship,"  was 
the  answer,  "this  is  a  very  odd  sort  of  an  author; 
he  would  fain  rhyme,  but  cannot  get  at  it." 
The  shepherd  could  have  understood  Allan 
Ramsay ;  Milton  was  out  of  his  reach. 

But  not  even  to  its  own  kindred  has  genius 
been  always  revealed.  Horace  censured  Plautus. 
The  library  of  Petrarch  wanted  the  Divine  Com- 
edy, until  Boccaccio  sent  it  embellished  with  gold. 


28          pleasures  of  ^Literature 

Daniel,  a  contemporary  of  Spenser,  and  a  versifier 
of  much  elegance,  ridiculed  the  antique  English 
of  the  Faery  Queen.  Walpole  sneered  at  Thom- 
son, and  Gray  could  satisfy  himself  with  admit- 
ting the  Castle  of  Indolence  to  contain  "some  good 
stanzas."  Hurd  regretted  that  Milton  had  not 
written  of  angels  in  rhyme;  Shenstone  thought 
that  Spenser  might  be  enjoyed  in  a  humorous 
light.  Blackmore  was  the  Homer  of  Locke.  The 
critics  of  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet,  with  Voiture 
at  their  head,  predicted  the  failure  of  Corneille; 
and  Patru,  quite  a  leader  of  fashion  in  books,  dis- 
suaded Fontaine  from  writing  fables. 

Jealousy  often  explains  blindness.  When  Le 
Brun  heard  of  the  death  of  Le  Sueur,  he  said  that 
he  felt  as  if  a  thorn  had  just  been  taken  out  of  his 
foot.  Bellino  warns  Titian  that  he  will  never 
succeed  in  painting;  and  Titian,  crowned  with 
fame,  scowls  upon  the  dawning  honours  of  Tin- 
toretto. Pordenone,  at  Venice,  kept  a  shield  and 
a  dagger  by  his  side.  Not  seldom  the  theologian, 
the  poet,  and  the  man  of  letters  display  the  same 
temper.  Bossuet  condemns  the  Telemachus  of 
Fenelon;  Corneille  doubts  the  dramatic  powers 
of  Racine;  and  Voltaire  smiles  condescendingly 
at  the  humour  of  Le  Sage. 


VI 

TASTE,  AN  INHERITANCE  AND  A 
FASHION 

TASTE  has  an  imaginary  existence,  uncon- 
nected with  the  intellect.  It  is  often  hered- 
itary or  acquired,  and  descends  from  father  to 
son  with  his  prejudices  and  estate.  The  manor- 
house,  the  hounds,  and  Somerville  go  together. 
Certain  authors  are  adopted  into  families.  Bun- 
yan  has  the  sacredness  of  a  legacy;  the  songs  of 
Watts  are  bound  up  with  earliest  days  at  mothers' 
knees ;  and  Gray's  Elegy  encloses  a  domestic  inte- 
rior of  warmth  and  affection  in  every  stanza. 
Hymns  have  been  intoned  through  the  noses  of 
three  generations,  and  will  probably  delight  the 
coming  age  with  all  the  music  and  endearment  of 
their  ancestral  twang.  In  such  cases  the  heart, 
not  the  understanding,  is  the  source  of  interest, 
and  admiration  is  only  a  pleasure  of  memory. 
Taste  is  sometimes  one  of  the  aspects  of  fash- 
ion. Folly  borrows  its  mask,  and  walks  out  with 
29 


3o          pleasures  of  literature 

Wisdom  arm-in-arm.  Like  virtues  of  greater 
dignity,  it  is  assumed.  The  furniture  and  deco- 
rations of  a  room  are  arranged  to  indicate  the 
serious  and  graceful  sentiments  of  the  occupant. 
Bishop  Sanderson  looks  gravely  on  Petrarch 
through  his  carved  frame.  Boccaccio  sparkles 
over  a  grim  treatise  of  Calvin,  and  a  ruffle  is 
smoothed  in  Aquinas. 

Addison  sketched  a  student  of  this  order,  in 
whose  library  he  found  Locke  On  the  Understand- 
ing with  a  paper  of  patches  among  the  leaves, 
and  all  the  classic  authors— in  wood,  with  bright 
backs.  To  such  readers,  a  new  book,  of  which 
people  talk,  is  like  a  new  costume  which  a  person 
of  celebrity  has  introduced.  It  is  the  rage.  Not 
to  be  acquainted  with  it  is  to  be  ill-dressed. 
The  pleasure  is  not  of  literature,  but  of  vanity. 
The  pretended  taste  is  a  polite  fraud  of  society. 

When  a  fashion  of  this  kind  happens  to  spread, 
it  takes  the  character  of  a  disease,  raging  and 
vanishing  with  the  virulence  and  speed  of  an  epi- 
demic. Marino  in  Italy,  Gongora  in  Spain,  and 
Cowley  in  England  are  varieties  of  the  same  type. 
Butler,  sitting  with  his  chaplain,  as  his  habit  was, 
in  a  deep  reverie,  suddenly  started  up,  with  the 
exclamation,  "Surely  whole  bodies  of  men  some- 


ZTaste— flnberitance  ant)  ffasbion    31 

times  lose  their  wits  as  instantaneously  as  an  indi- 
vidual does!"  The  bishop's  conjecture  might 
very  well  illustrate  the  breaking  out  of  a  popular 
fever  in  things  concerning  taste.  Like  other 
attacks  of  delirium,  it  is  unmanageable  while  it 
lasts.  Its  will  is  absolute.  Reynolds  assured 
Northcote  that  in  the  beginning  of  his  own  career 
the  fame  of  Kneller  was  so  universal,  that  a  con- 
noisseur presuming  to  suggest  a  competitor  in 
Vandyck  would  have  been  laughed  to  scorn. 
Spence's  criticism  on  the  Odyssey  was  pronounced 
by  persons  of  reputation  to  be  superior  to  Addi- 
son's  papers  on  Milton.  It  is  pleasant  to  know 
that  sooner  or  later  the  fever  departs,  and  taste 
recovers  the  tone  of  health.  Sixty  years  ago  we 
met  with  Rasselas,  Telemachus,  Cyrus,  and  Mar- 
cus Flaminius,  moving  as  equals  in  fortune  and 
rank.  The  authors  had  passed  their  examination 
for  honours,  and  were  sent  before  the  world  in 
brackets.  Time  has  changed  their  places  in  the 
calendar.  Johnson  and  Fenelon  are  household 
words;  but  who  speaks  of  Sir  Charles  Ramsay, 
or  Cornelia  Knight? 

Two  other  peculiarities  may  be  noticed  in  the 
natural  history  of  taste.  The  first  is  the  strong 
propensity  in  most  people  to  make  themselves 


32          pleasures  of  literature 

and  their  view  the  measure  of  excellence.  The 
scenical  De  Stael,  always  on  the  watch  for  a  stage 
effect,  complained  that  Spenser  was  the  most 
tedious  writer  in  the  world.  Nor  is  the  error  con- 
fined to  individuals.  It  is  national.  A  country 
grows  its  taste  like  its  fruit.  Germany  and  ro- 
mance inspire  Schlegel;  England  and  good 
sense  rule  Hallam.  Read  and  contrast  these  two 
characters  of  a  famous  tragedy.  "Why,"  asks 
Schlegel,  "does  the  Romeo  of  Shakespeare  stand 
so  far  above  all  the  other  dramas  of  that  poet, 
except  that,  in  the  first  delightful  gush  of  youth- 
ful passion,  he  deemed  that  work  a  fitting  shrine 
for  the  outpouring  of  his  emotion,  with  which  the 
entire  poem  thus  became  filled  and  interpene- 
trated?" "It  may  be  said,"  observes  Hallam, 
"that  few,  if  any,  of  his  plays  are  more  open  to 
reasonable  censure:  and  we  are  almost  equally 
struck  by  its  excellences  and  its  defects.  The  love 
of  Romeo  is  that  of  the  most  bombastic  com- 
monplace of  gallantry,  and  the  young  lady  differs 
only  in  being  one  degree  more  mad."  Were  two 
voices  ever  heard  more  contrary,  or  positive  ? 

The  second  peculiarity  resides  in  what  may  be 
characterised  as  the  taste  of  the  market.  In  an 
age  of  high  civilisation,  a  publisher  is  a  manu- 


Uaste— flnberitance  ant)  ffasbion    33 

facturer.  He  supplies  the  demand,  but  rarely 
creates  it.  Helvetius  has  an  amusing  story  of  a 
person  appearing  before  a  tribunal  and  describing 
himself  as  a  maker  of  books.  The  judge  pleaded 
ignorance  of  his  productions.  "I  quite  believe 
you,"  answered  the  author,  with  tranquillity;  "I 
write  nothing  for  Paris.  When  my  book  is  printed 
I  send  the  edition  to  America.  I  only  compose 
for  the  colonies."  He  who  addresses  his  own 
century,  and  flatters  its  caprices,  will  probably 
be  as  unknown  in  the  next  as  the  scribbler  for  re- 
mote countries  was  in  Paris. 


VII 
A  PURE  TASTE  SELDOM  FOUND 

QHENSTONE  said  that  if  the  world  were  di- 
^     vided  into  one  hundred  parts,  persons  of 
original  taste,  educated  by  art,  would  only  form 
a  twentieth  portion  of  the  whole.     Popular  opin- 
ion is  the  old  fable  of  the  lion's  great  supper. 
The  delicacies  of  the  forest  were  spread  before 
the  guests;  but  the  swine  asked,  "Have  you  no 
grains?"     The  most  unpleasing  shape  of  bad 
taste  is  a  flippant  confidence,  with  a  strong  show 
of  appreciation.    An  entertaining  French  writer 
relates  an  experiment  which  he  made  upon  the 
musical  feelings  of  animals.    The  spectator  alto- 
gether unmoved  was  the  one  with  the  most  ear. 
He  munched  his  thistles,  and  took  no  notice  at  all. 
Dryden  was  certain,  if  Virgil  and  Martial  had 
stood  for  a  county,  that  the  epigrammatist  would 
have  carried  the  election ;  but  he  consoled  himself 
by  reflecting  that  in  matters  of  taste  the  applause 
of  the  mob  is  altogether  worthless,  and  that,  not 

34 


H  pure  Uastc  Selfcom  ffounfr      35 

having  lands  of  two  pounds  per  annum  in  Par- 
nassus, they  are  not  privileged  to  poll. 

Johnson  enumerated  three  classes  of  literary 
judges — (i)  those  who  give  their  opinion  from 
impulse  and  feeling;  (2)  those  who  measure  a 
line  or  a  paragraph  by  rules  alone ;  (3)  and  those 
who,  being  familiar  with  the  laws  of  composition, 
and  skilful  in  applying  them,  are  independent  of 
all.  He  advised  an  author  to  try  and  satisfy  the 
third  class,  to  esteem  the  first,  but  to  despise  and 
reject  the  second.  His  judgment  is  upheld  by 
distinguished  authorities.  "Whoever  writes  or 
acts  by  system,"  is  a  remark  of  Payne  Knight, 
"  may  stand  a  chance  of  being  uniformly  and  in- 
variably wrong."  That  which  pleases  a  refined 
and  a  reflective  reader  must  be  good,  although 
the  artillery  of  criticism  be  played  upon  it.  The 
falling  tear  blots  out  Aristotle. 

The  most  philosophical  critic  of  the  eighteenth 
century  perceived  that  graceful  and  imaginative 
composition  should  be  esteemed  chiefly  by  its 
impression  upon  the  cultivated  mind.  Shaftes- 
bury  recommended  an  author  to  assemble  the 
best  forces  of  his  wit,  in  order  to  make  an  assault 
on  the  territories  of  the  heart.  Reynolds  spoke 
of  taste  as  depending  on  those  finer  emotions 


36          pleasures  of  literature 

which  make  the  organisation  of  the  soul.  Nor 
is  a  remark  of  Alison  undeserving  of  remem- 
brance—that the  exercise  of  criticism  always  de- 
stroys for  a  time  our  sensibility  to  beauty,  by 
leading  us  to  regard  the  work  in  relation  to  cer- 
tain laws  of  construction.  The  eye  turns  from 
the  charms  of  nature  to  fix  itself  upon  the  servile 
dexterity  of  art. 

The  unconscious  testimony  of  Gray  may  be 
added.  When  he  sent  his  Ode  on  the  Progress  of 
Poetry  to  Dr.  Warton,  he  requested  him  not  to 
show  it  to  mere  scholars,  who  could  scan  the 
measures  of  Pindar,  and  say  the  Scholia  by  heart. 

Literature  is  a  garden,  books  are  particular 
views  of  it,  and  readers  are  visitors.  Much  of 
their  pleasure  depends  on  the  guides.  It  is  very 
important  to  obtain  the  assistance  of  those  only 
who  are  familiar  with  the  beauties  they  show,  and 
able,  from  feeling  and  practice,  to  appreciate 
lights  and  shades  and  colours.  Of  this  small 
band  Gilpin  is  a  remarkable  instance.  How  hap- 
pily he  clears  a  passage  in  the  Iliad  which 
learning  had  left  in  obscurity. 

Homer  distinguishes  Jupiter  by  a  peculiarity 
of  forehead;  Gilpin  shows  us  that  the  poet  in- 
tended to  protray  the  projecting  brow,  which 


H  pure  ftaste  Seldom  jfounfc      37 

casts  a  broad  shadow  over  the  eye.  His  interpre- 
tation is  extremely  picturesque,  and  may  be  com- 
pared with  Spenser's  description  of  the  dragon: 

"  But  far  within,  as  in  a  hollow  glade, 
Those  glowing  lamps  were  set,  that  made  a  dreadful  shade." 

Here  is  another  example.  Virgil  paints  a  ship 
in  full  sail,  and  losing  sight  of  the  line  of  coast, 

"  Protinus  ae'rias  Phaeacum  abscondimus  arces." 

In  the  eye  of  scholastic  readers,  "aerial"  is 
only  a  synonym  for  "tall."  But  a  receding  ob- 
ject does  not  suggest  merely  elevation.  Taste 
again  holds  up  its  lamp.  Gilpin  conjectures  that 
Virgil,  who  above  all  poets  enjoyed  the  artistic 
eye,  intended  to  indicate  colour  rather  than  shape, 
and  represented  the  towers  bathed  in  that  soft 
blue  of  distance  which  gives  the  faint  azure  tinge 
to  mountain  scenery. 

This  delicacy  of  discrimination  communicates 
a  charm  to  the  Essays  of  Uvedale  Price,  which 
will  do  more  to  form  a  true  feeling  for  the  beauti- 
ful than  any  single  book  in  the  English  language. 
Twining  is  a  younger  member  of  the  same  family. 
One  specimen  of  his  manner  will  be  interesting. 
Speaking  of  sounds,  and  the  opportunities  which 


3s          pleasures  of  literature 

they  afford  of  descriptive  imitation,  he  refers  to 
Milton's  "curfew," 

"  Over  some  wide-watered  shore, 
Swinging  slow  with  sullen  roar," 

and  teaches  us  not  to  consider  "swinging"  as 
expressing  only  the  motion  of  the  bell,  but  to  feel 
that  its  swing  is  actually  heard  in  its  tone,  "which 
is  different  from  what  it  would  be  if  the  same  bell 
were  struck  with  the  same  force,  but  at  rest." 

The  elegance  of  Gilpin,  the  graceful  knowledge 
of  Price,  the  sensibility  of  Twining,  and  the  poet- 
ical refinement  of  the  Wartons  are  exceptions 
among  commentators.  A  correction,  or  a  note, 
is  too  often  out  of  harmony  with  the  passage  ex- 
plained or  amended.  A  verse  of  Shakespeare  be- 
comes dreary  in  a  moment.  The  sun  goes  in 
when  Maratti  retouches  the  picture  of  Titian. 

It  may  be  regretted  that  a  large  capacity  and 
a  vigorous  imagination  are  so  seldom  accompa- 
nied by  taste.  The  tender  blossom  of  fancy  was 
crushed  in  the  hard  pressure  of  Warburton.  He 
has  become  his  own  accuser  in  the  annotation 
upon  these  two  lines  of  Shakespeare: 

"  And  cuckow-buds  of  yellow  hue 

Do  paint  the  meadows  with  delight  " — 


H  pure  {Taste  Selbom  ffounfc      39 

a  description  so  rural  and  easy,  that  we  might 
have  expected  it  to  escape  even  the  predatory  pen 
of  a  commentator.  Hear  Warburton:  "I  would 
read  thus — 'Do  paint  the  meadows  much  bedight,' 
i.  e.,  much  bedecked  and  adorned,  as  they  are  in 
spring-time."  Yet,  if  they  are  much  bedight 
already,  they  do  not  require  to  be  painted.  The 
image  has  two  sides.  One  looks  to  the  eye;  the 
other  to  the  feelings.  The  emotional  appeal  is 
the  more  affecting.  But  Warburton  runs  his  pen 
through  it,  forgetting  how  that  tuneful  friend, 
whom  he  delighted  to  honour,  had  lashed  the 
conjecturing  tribe 

"  Whose  unwearied  pains 
Made  Horace  dull,  and  humbled  Maro's  strains." 

The  lovers  of  Shakespeare  hope  that  the  last 
revision  of  his  works  is  inflicted.  His  poetry  has 
been  too  long  the  orchard  of  quarrelsome  editors, 
who  leave  disastrous  proofs  of  their  activity  in 
trunks  stripped  of  ivy,  shattered  boughs,  and 
trampled  enclosures.  Some  squalid  article  of 
intellectual  dress,  which  they  call  an  emendation, 
sticking  among  the  rich  fruit,  proclaims  the  plun- 
derer to  have  been  up  in  the  tree.  It  happens, 
indeed,  that  the  sentiment  of  anger  is  occasionally 


40          pleasures  of  Xiterature 

softened  by  a  sense  of  the  ridiculous.  One  ad- 
venturer has  no  sooner  packed  up  his  little  bundle 
of  pillage,  than  he  is  waylaid  by  a  tierce  rival  on 
the  opposite  side.  Then  begin  the  clamour,  the 
reproach,  and  the  struggle.  Pamphlets  are 
hurled ;  satirical  blows  are  showered : 

"  Collect!  flores  tunicis  cecidere  remissb." 

The  assertion  of  Bacon,  that  the  most  corrected 
copies  of  an  author  are  commonly  the  least  cor- 
rect, may  advantageously  be  stamped  as  an  intro- 
ductory motto  for  every  copy  of  Shakespeare. 


VIII 

TASTE  PUTS   AN  AUTHOR    IN    A 
FAVOURABLE   LIGHT 

A  GOOD  reader  is  nearly  as  rare  as  a  good 
writer.  People  bring  their  prejudices, 
whether  friendly  or  adverse.  They  are  lamp  and 
spectacles,  lighting  and  magnifying  the  page.  It 
was  a  pleasant  sarcasm  of  Selden,  that  the  alchem- 
ist discovered  his  art  in  Virgil's  golden  bough,  and 
the  optician  his  science  in  the  Annals  of  Tacitus. 
When  juries  of  Taste  are  thus  empanelled,  an 
author  may  fairly  claim  a  right  of  challenge. 
Passion  and  self-love  corrupt  verdicts.  What 
judge  would  Milton  have  been  of  Cowley's  dis- 
course upon  Cromwell  ?  Calvin,  breathing  flames 
and  threats  against  Servetus,  found  a  heresy  in 
every  line  of  his  treatises.  Trublet  had  a  contem- 
porary whose  periods  of  contradiction  came  round 
in  their  order.  To-day  Corneille  was  despicable, 
to-morrow  the  prince  of  poets. 

41 


42          pleasures  of  ^Literature 

It  is  not  enough  for  a  reader  to  be  unprejudiced. 
He  should  remember  that  a  book  is  to  be  studied 
as  a  picture  is  hung.  Not  only  must  a  bad  light 
be  avoided,  but  a  good  one  be  obtained.  This 
Taste  supplies.  It  puts  a  history,  a  tale,  or  a 
poem,  in  a  just  point  of  view,  and  there  examines 
the  execution.  It  causes  the  reader  to  forget 
himself  and  his  own  century.  He  goes  out  of  the 
familiar  into  the  heroic;  rides  with  the  Cid;  laces 
the  helmet  of  Surrey:  and  flings  himself  among 
the  magnificent  knights  of  Tasso.  Every  im- 
pulse of  pleasure  and  grief  makes  his  heart  beat 
by  turns.  He  braves  the  tempest  with  Lear, 
endures  the  picturesque  torments  of  Dante,  and 
sinks  into  delicious  dreams  in  the  Castle  of  In- 
dolence. These  are  some  of  the  delights  of  a 
poetical  faith,  which  every  accomplished  reader 
encourages.  On  the  stage  a  candle  is  the  sun, 
and  a  painted  cloth  stands  for  Venice.  The  cre- 
dulity of  Taste  gives  the  like  help  to  the  illusions 
of  authors,  and  never  sits  down  in  the  same 
temper  to  the  wonders  of  Camoens,  and  the 
statistics  of  M'Culloch. 

If  an  architect  were  to  fix  a  ladder  against  a 
cathedral  window  on  a  dull  November  day,  and 
break  up  with  sharp  scrutiny  the  crimson  dress 


an  Butfoor  in  a  ^favourable  3Lf0bt    43 

and  glory  of  the  saint,  the  artist's  powers  would 
disappear.  Colour  and  expression  are  gone.  The 
maker  of  the  window  never  contemplated  such 
an  ordeal. 

He  who  disregards  the  object  and  the  character 
of  a  book  inflicts  on  its  writer  an  equal  wrong. 
Consider  Spenser.  He  calls  his  Faery  Queen  a 
perpetual  allegory,  or  dark  conceit.  It  should 
be  read  under  the  bright  play  of  the  moral,  which 
is  the  sun  to  the  window.  In  blaming  the  obscur- 
ity of  the  poem,  we  forget  that  its  illumination  is 
coloured.  It  is  the  lustre  of  a  ruby,  not  a  crystal. 
Each  thought  is  tinged  by  the  allegory  into  a  hue 
of  fancy,  as  the  sun  in  the  cathedral  is  dyed  by 
the  glass  into  stains  of  amethyst  and  emerald. 
The  critic  who  decomposes  a  stanza  into  com- 
mon-sense is  the  architect  spelling  out  upon  his 
ladder  the  wonders  of  the  window,  instead  of  gaz- 
ing up  to  it  from  the  dim  choir,  when  summer  or 
autumn  lights  bathe  the  faces  and  the  drapery 
from  behind. 

No  window  gives  all  its  splendours  at  once.  It 
must  be  visited  often.  A  morning  or  afternoon 
gleam  sheds  a  different  tincture.  Moonlight 
wakes  a  solemn  charm  of  its  own.  Winckelmann 
wished  to  live  with  a  work  of  art  as  a  friend.  The 


44          pleasures  of  ^Literature 

saying  is  true  of  Pen  and  Pencil.  Fresh  lustre 
shoots  from  Lycidas  in  a  twentieth  perusal.  The 
portraits  of  Clarendon  are  mellowed  by  every 
year  of  reflection.  The  conjecture  had  only  a 
poetical  boldness,  which  supposed  that  a  student 
might  linger  over  Shakespeare,  dwelling  upon  him 
line  by  line,  and  word  by  word,  until  the  mind, 
steeped  in  brilliancy,  would  almost  scatter  light 
in  the  dark. 

Whoever  has  spent  many  days  in  the  company 
of  choice  pictures  will  remember  the  surprises 
that  often  reward  him.  When  the  sun  strikes  an 
evening  scene  by  Both,  or  Berghem,  in  a  particu- 
lar direction,  the  change  is  swift  and  dazzling. 
Every  touch  of  the  pencil  begins  to  live.  Buried 
figures  arise;  purple  robes  look  as  if  they  had  just 
been  dyed;  cattle  start  up  from  dusky  corners; 
trunks  of  trees  flicker  with  gold ;  leaves  flutter  in 
light;  and  a  soft,  shadowy  gust— sun  and  breeze 
together — plays  over  the  grass.  But  the  charm 
is  fleeting,  as  it  is  vivid.  In  a  few  minutes  the 
sun  sinks  lower,  or  a  cloud  rolls  over  it ;  the  scene 
melts,  the  figures  grow  dark,  and  the  whole  land- 
scape faints  and  dies  into  coldness  and  gloom. 

Life  has  its  gay,  hopeful  hours  which  lend  to  the 
book  a  lustre,  not  less  delightful  than  the  ac- 


Hn  Hutfoor  In  a  ^favourable  OLigbt  45 

cidents  of  sunshine  breathe  upon  the  picture. 
Every  mind  is  sometimes  dull.  The  magician 
of  the  morning  may  be  the  beggar  of  the  after- 
noon. Now  the  sky  of  thought  is  black  and  cheer- 
less; presently  it  will  be  painted  with  beauty,  or 
spangled  with  stars.  Taste  varies  with  temper 
and  health.  There  are  minutes  when  the  song  of 
Fletcher  is  not  sweeter  than  Pomfret's.  The 
reader  must  watch  for  the  sunbeam.  Elia  puts 
this  difficulty  in  a  pleasant  form,  and  shows  us 
that  our  sympathy  with  a  writer  is  affected  by  the 
hour,  or  the  mood  in  which  we  make  his  acquain- 
tance: "In  the  five  or  six  impatient  minutes  be- 
fore the  dinner  is  quite  ready,  who  would  think 
of  taking  up  the  Faery  Queen  for  a  stopgap,  or  a 
volume  of  Bishop  Andrewes's  sermons?  Milton 
almost  requires  a  solemn  service  to  be  played 
before  you  enter  upon  him."  Only  a  zealot  in 
Political  Economy  begins  Adam  Smith  before 
breakfast;  and  he  must  be  fast  growing  be- 
numbed in  metaphysics  who  wishes  Cudworth  to 
come  in  with  the  dessert. 

A  celebrated  author  is  reported  to  have  said, 
"  I  know  not  how  it  is,  but  all  my  philosophy  in 
which  I  was  so  warmly  engaged  in  the  morning, 
appears  like  nonsense  as  soon  as  I  have  dined." 


4a          pleasures  of  Xiterature 

Perhaps  Ariosto  selected  an  unpropitious  hour 
when  he  presented  his  Orlando  to  the  Cardinal 
d'Este,  and  was  startled  by  the  inquiry  of  his 
Eminence,  Whence  had  he  gathered  such  a  heap 
of  fooleries  ? 

The  man  of  taste,  therefore,  chooses  his  book, 
according  to  the  season  and  his  own  disposition 
at  the  moment;  waiting  for  the  rays  that  occa- 
sionally dart  from  it,  in  some  happy  transparency 
and  warmth  of  the  mind,  as  the  lover  of  pictures 
looks  for  the  flush  of  sunset  on  the  canvas.  By 
degrees  he  comes  to  know  that  every  writer  makes 
a  certain  demand  upon  his  reader.  This  is  em- 
phatically true  of  those  inquiries  or  consolations 
which  concern  the  soul.  That  ancient  Master, 
who  always  rose  from  his  knees  to  his  pencil,  sug- 
gests the  tone  of  mind.  The  serenity  of  Words- 
worth's grandest  verse  is  not  for  him  who  receives 
a  box  of  twenty  new  volumes  every  week;  but 
for  the  serious,  musing  man  who  sits  at  his  own 
door,  and, 

"  like  the  pear, 

That  overhangs  his  head  from  the  green  wall, 
Feeds  in  the  sunshine." 


IX 


JOHNSON  at  dinner  sometimes  kept  a  book  in 
his  lap,  wrapped  up  in  a  corner  of  the  table- 
cloth; and  Hammond  always  took  one  of  these 
mute  friends  to  cheer  his  walks.  Southey  divided 
them  into  three  classes :  one  for  the  table,  a  sec- 
ond for  the  fields,  and  a  third  for  the  coach.  A 
closely  printed  volume,  full  of  texts,  which  the 
mind  worked  into  sermons,  was  the  favourite  for 
a  journey.  The  Colloquies  of  Erasmus  stood  him 
"in  good  stead"  for  more  than  one  excursion; 
and  the  Utopia  of  Sir  Thomas  More  was  found 
serviceable  for  another. 

A  classification  of  authors  to  suit  all  hours  and 
weathers  might  be  amusing.  Ariosto  spans  a  wet 
afternoon  like  a  rainbow.  North  winds  and  sleet 
agree  with  Junius.  The  visionary  tombs  of  Dante 
glimmer  into  awful  perspective  by  moonlight. 
Crabbe  is  never  so  pleasing  as  on  the  hot  shingle, 

47 


4s          pleasures  of  literature 

when  we  can  look  up  from  his  verses  at  the  sleepy 
sea  and  count  the 

"  Crimson  weeds,  which  spreading  flow, 
Or  lie  like  pictures  on  the  sands  below: 
With  all  those  bright  red  pebbles,  that  the  sun 
Through  the  small  waves  so  softly  shines  upon." 

Some  books  come  in  with  lamps,  and  curtains,  and 
fresh  logs.  An  evening  in  late  autumn,  when 
there  is  no  moon,  and  the  boughs  toss  like  foam 
raking  a  pebbly  shore,  is  just  the  time  for  Undine. 
A  voyage  is  read  with  deepest  interest  in  winter, 
while  the  hail  dashes  against  the  window: 

"  'Tis  pleasant  by  the  cheerful  hearth  to  hear 
Of  tempests  and  the  dangers  of  the  deep, 
And  pause  at  times,  and  feel  that  we  are  safe; 
And  with  an  eager  and  suspended  soul, 
Woo  terror  to  delight  us." 

The  sobs  of  the  storm  are  musical  chimes  for  a 
ghost  story,  or  one  of  those  fearful  tales  with 
which  the  blind  fiddler  in  Redgauntlei  made  "the 
auld  carlines  shake  on  the  settle,  and  the  bits  of 
bairns  skirl  on  their  minnies  out  frae  their  beds." 

Shakespeare  is  always  most  welcome  at  the 
chimney-corner:  so  is  Goldsmith:  who  does  not 
wish  Dr.  Primrose  to  call  in  the  evening  and 


36oofes  Boapteo  to  Seasons        49 

Olivia  to  preside  at  the  urn?  Elia  affirms  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  reading,  or  writing,  but 
by  a  candle;  he  is  confident  that  Milton  composed 
the  morning  hymn  of  Eden  with  a  clear  fire  burn- 
ing in  the  room;  and  in  Taylor's  gorgeous  descrip- 
tion of  sunrise  he  found  the  smell  of  the  lamp 
quite  overpowering.  A  modern  poet  has  charm- 
ingly sketched  a  family  group  enjoying  the  even- 
ing pleasures  of  literature: 

"  At  night,  when  all  assembling  round  the  fire, 
Closer  and  closer  draw  till  they  retire, 
A  tale  is  told  of  India  or  Japan, 
Of  merchants  from  Golcond  or  Astracan, 
What  time  wild  Nature  revelled  unrestrained, 
And  Sinbad  voyaged,  and  the  Caliphs  reigned; — 
Of  Knight  renowned  from  holy  Palestine, 
And  Minstrels,  such  as  swept  the  lyre  divine, 
When  Blondel  came,  and  Richard  in  his  cell 
Heard,  as  he  lay,  the  song  he  knew  so  well; — 
Of  some  Norwegian,  while  the  icy  gale 
Rings  in  her  shrouds,  and  beats  her  iron  sail, 
Among  the  shining  Alps  of  Polar  seas 
Immovable— for  ever  there  to  freeze! 
And  now  to  Venice — to  a  bridge,  a  square, 
Glittering  with  light — all  nations  masking  there, 
With  light  reflected  on  the  tremulous  tide, 
Where  gondolas  in  gay  confusion  glide, 
Answering  the  jest,  the  song  on  every  side." 


5o          pleasures  of  literature 

There  are  various  ways  of  making,  or  finding, 
happiness.  Lord  Peterborough  was  happy  when, 
jumping  from  his  carriage,  sword  in  hand,  he 
drove  a  dainty  player  into  the  thickest  mud  of 
the  Strand,  and  splashed  him  from  the  clock  of 
the  stocking  to  the  top  curl;  Southey  rejoiced 
in  unpacking  a  box  of  books;  and  Selwyn  in  a 
fine  view  of  the  gibbet.  But  is  any  happiness  like 
that  of  a  dear  old  book  by  the  fireside — Farrindon, 
with  his  grand  seriousness,  or  romantic  Henry 
More,  with  his  far  gaze  into  the  life  of  angels  ? 

Yet  Elia  carried  his  candlelight  theory  beyond 
due  measure.  Some  people  have  tried  "the  affec- 
tation of  a  book  at  noonday  in  gardens  and  sultry 
arbours,"  without  finding  their  task  of  love  to  be 
unlearned.  Indeed,  many  books  belong  to  sun- 
shine, and  should  be  read  out  of  doors.  Clover, 
violets,  and  roses  breathe  from  their  leaves ;  they 
are  most  lovable  in  cool  lanes,  along  fieldpaths, 
or  upon  stiles  overhung  by  hawthorn;  while  the 
blackbird  pipes,  and  the  nightingale  bathes  its 
brown  feathers  in  the  twilight  copse.  In  such 
haunts  it  is  soothing  to  wander  with  Thomson, 
Bloomfield,  or  Clare, 

"till  declining  day, 
Through  the  green  trellis  shoots  a  crimson  ray." 


:Boofes  Hoapteb  to  Seasons        51 

The  sensation  is  heightened  when  we  read  an 
author  amid  the  scenery  which  he  describes;  as 
Barrow  studied  the  sermons  of  Chrysostom  in 
his  own  See  of  Constantinople.  What  daisies 
sprinkle  the  walks  of  Cowper,  if  we  take  his  Task 
for  a  companion  through  the  lanes  of  Weston! 
Under  the  thick  hedges  of  Horton,  darkening 
either  bank  of  the  field  in  the  September  moon- 
light, //  Penseroso  is  still  more  tender.  And 
whoever  would  feel  at  his  heart  the  deep  pathos 
of  Collins's  lamentation  for  Thomson,  should  mur- 
mur it  to  himself  as  he  glides  by  the  breezy  lawns 
and  elms  of  Richmond — 

"  When  Thames  in  summer  wreaths  is  drest, 
And  oft  suspend  the  dashing  oar, 
To  bid  his  gentle  spirit  rest." 


WHETHER  a  book  be  read  from  the  oak 
lectern  of  a  college  library,  in  the  parlour 
window,  or  beneath  the  trees  of  summer,  no  fruit 
will  be  gathered  unless  the  thoughts  are  steadily 
given  up  to  the  perusal.  Attention  makes  the 
genius;  all  learning,  fancy,  and  science  depend 
upon  it.  Newton  traced  back  his  discoveries  to 
its  unwearied  employment.  It  builds  bridges, 
opens  new  worlds,  and  heals  diseases;  without 
it  taste  is  useless,  and  the  beauties  of  literature 
are  unobserved;  as  the  rarest  flowers  bloom  in 
vain,  if  the  eye  be  not  fixed  upon  the  bed. 

Condillac  enforces  this  habit  of  patience  by  an 
apt  similitude.  He  supposes  a  traveller  to  arrive 
in  the  dark  at  a  castle,  commanding  large  views 
of  the  surrounding  scenery.  If  with  sunrise  the 
shutters  be  unclosed  for  a  moment,  and  then  fast- 
ened, he  catches  a  glimpse  of  the  landscape,  but 
no  object  is  clearly  seen  or  remembered— all 
52 


Diligence  53 

wavers  in  a  confusion  of  light  and  shade.  But  if 
the  windows  be  kept  open,  the  visitor  receives 
and  retains  a  strong  impression  of  the  woods, 
fields,  and  villages  spread  before  his  eyes. 

The  application  of  the  comparison  is  obvious. 
Every  noble  book  is  a  stronghold  of  the  mind, 
built  upon  some  high  place  of  contemplation,  and 
overlooking  wide  tracts  of  intellectual  country. 
The  unacquainted  reader  may  be  the  traveller 
coming  in  the  dark;  sunrise  will  represent  the 
dawn  of  his  comprehension;  and  a  drowsy  in- 
difference is  explained  by  the  closing  of  the 
windows.  In  whatever  degree  this  languor  of  ob- 
servation is  broken,  gleams  will  break  in  upon  the 
mind.  But  the  shutters  must  be  fastened  back. 
The  judgment  and  the  memory  are  required  in 
their  fulness  to  irradiate  the  subject,  before  the 
mental  prospect  stretching  over  the  page  can  ap- 
pear in  its  length,  and  breadth,  and  beauty. 

Attention  is  not  often  the  talent  of  early  life. 
For  this  cause,  the  exquisite  verses  of  Virgil,  when 
read  in  schools,  excite  little,  if  any,  interest  and 
delight.  It  was  remarked  by  a  most  accom- 
plished person,  the  late  Mr.  Davison,  that  the 
Principia  of  Newton,  or  the  doctrine  of  fluxions, 
may  be  understood  by  a  youth  of  eighteen;  but 


54          pleasures  ot  literature 

that  the  Iliad,  the  Epistks  of  Horace,  or  the  His- 
tory of  Clarendon,  can  never  be  embraced,  until 
repeated  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  reader  himself 
shall  have  conducted  him  to  that  point  of  view 
in  which  the  writers  regarded  their  own  works. 

There  is  one  variety  of  attention  which  the 
humblest  student  may  acquire.  Gassendi  in- 
forms us  that  Peiresc  always  underlined  any  diffi- 
cult passage,  that  he  might  return  to  it  at  a 
convenient  season.  Wyttenbach  mentions  the 
same  practice  in  Ruhnken.  Leibnitz  made  ex- 
tracts, wrote  his  opinion  upon  them,  and  then  cast 
the  papers  aside.  Having  engraved  the  picture  on 
his  memory  he  destroyed  the  plate.  The  advice 
of  a  scholar,  whose  piles  of  learning  were  set  on 
fire  by  imagination,  is  never  to  be  forgotten: 
Proportion  an  hour's  reflection  to  an  hour's  read- 
ing, and  so  dispirit  the  book  into  the  student. 
Nor  is  the  following  caution  less  happy  than  it 
is  quaint:  "Marshal  thy  notions  into  a  hand- 
some method.  One  will  carry  twice  as  much 
weight,  trussed  and  packed  up  in  bundles,  than 
when  it  lies  untoward,  flapping  and  hanging 
about  his  shoulders." 

Lamb  prided  himself  on  being  able  to  read  any- 
thing which  in  his  heart  he  felt  to  be  a  book.  He 


H>f  licence  55 

had  no  antipathies.  Shaftesbury  was  not  too 
genteel  nor  Fielding  too  familiar.  Pope  confessed 
his  own  miscellaneous  amusements  in  letters, 
knocking  at  any  door,  as  the  storm  drove. 
Montaigne  and  Locke  were  alike  to  him.  The 
example  is  dangerous.  A  discursive  student  is 
almost  certain  to  fall  into  bad  company.  Homes 
of  entertainment,  scientific  and  romantic,  are 
always  open  to  a  man  who  is  trying  to  escape 
from  his  thoughts.  But  a  shelter  from  the  tem- 
pest is  dearly  bought  in  the  house  of  the  plague. 
Ten  minutes  with  a  French  novel,  or  a  German 
rationalist,  have  sent  a  reader  away  with  a  fever 
for  life. 

At  the  first  glance,  all  study  might  seem  to  be 
wasted  which  is  not  devoted  to  the  greatest  writer 
in  each  particular  branch  of  knowledge;  but  con- 
sideration shows  the  bold  attempt  to  be  vain. 
The  exertion  of  mind  is  too  much  for  its  strength. 
A  scholar  of  the  average  capacity  reading  an  au- 
thor of  the  sublimest,  is  a  man  of  the  common  size 
going  up  a  hill  with  a  giant :  every  step  is  a  strain ; 
the  easy  walk  of  the  one  is  the  full  speed  of  the 
other.  Frequent  intervals  of  rest  are  needed. 
He  must  come  down  from  the  high  argument  into 
the  plain.  Over  a  dozen  pages  of  Bloomfield  he 


s  6          pleasures  of  literature 

recovers  from  the  fatigue  of  a  morning's  journey 
with  Dante;  and  a  sermon  of  Blair's  gives  him 
breath  for  another  climb  with  Hooker.  Dr. 
Warton  had  a  friend  who,  after  reading  a  book  of 
the  Dunciad,  always  soothed  himself  with  a  Canto 
cf  Spenser. 

We  may  generalise  Ben  Jonson's  advice  to  a 
poet  about  the  choice  of  a  master,  to  be  honoured 
and  followed  until  he  grows  very  He.  It  is  cer- 
tainly better  to  set  up  one  great  light  in  a  room, 
than  to  make  it  twinkle  with  a  dozen  tapers. 
Dante  had  his  Virgil;  Corneille,  his  Lucan;  Bar- 
row, his  Chrysostom;  Bossuet,  his  Homer;  Chat- 
ham, his  Demosthenes,  in  a  translation;  Gray, 
his  Spenser.  It  is  a  remark  of  Warburton  that 
Burke  never  wrote  so  well  as  when  he  imitated 
Bolingbroke.  Tonson,  the  bookseller,  seldom 
called  upon  Addison  without  finding  Bayle's  Dic- 
tionary on  the  table.  And  in  our  own  times, 
Lamb  assured  Mr.  Gary,  that  Coleridge  fed  him- 
self on  Collins.  "  I  guess  good  housekeeping,"  was 
the  saying  of  Fuller,  "not  by  the  number  of  chim- 
neys, but  by  the  smoke."  Ben  Johnson's  exhorta- 
tion, therefore,  may  be  received,  but  only  in  a  large 
and  liberal  spirit.  Reverence  is  not  to  be  debased 
into  superstition.  Choose  an  old  field,  and  work 


SHUoence  57 

in  it;  but  never  sink  into  the  serf  of  the  pro- 
prietor. Be  the  lord,  while  you  are  the  tiller,  of 
the  ground.  Recollect  the  warning  of  Pliny, 
and  bind  a  laurel  upon  the  plough. 


XI 


CRITICISM  is  taste  put  into  action.  A  true 
criticism  is  the  elegant  expression  of  a  just 
judgment.  It  includes  taste,  of  which  it  is  the 
exponent  and  the  supplement.  The  frame  of 
genius,  with  its  intricate  construction  and  myste- 
rious economy,  is  the  subject  of  study.  The  finest 
nerve  of  sensation  may  not  be  overlooked.  But 
criticism  must  never  be  sharpened  into  anatomy. 
The  delicate  veins  of  fancy  may  be  traced,  and 
the  rich  blood,  that  gives  bloom  and  health  to  the 
complexion  of  thought,  be  resolved  into  its  ele- 
ments. Stop  there.  The  life  of  the  imagina- 
tion, as  of  the  body,  disappears  when  we  pursue  it. 
Many  pleasures  of  literature  are  bound  up  in 
criticism.  One  interesting  feature  is  seen  in  the 
ease  with  which  it  discovers  what  Addison  called 
the  specific  quality  of  an  author.  In  Livy,  it  will 
be  the  manner  of  telling  the  story;  in  Sallust,  per- 
58 


Criticism  59 

sonal  identification  with  the  character;  in  Tacitus 
the  analysis  of  the  deed  into  its  motive.  If  the 
same  test  be  applied  to  painters,  it  will  find  the 
prominent  faculty  of  Correggio  to  be  manifested 
in  harmony  of  effect;  of  Poussin,  in  the  sentiment 
of  his  landscapes ;  and  of  Raffaelle,  in  the  general 
comprehension  of  his  subject. 

The  popular  characters  of  authors  are  fre- 
quently only  vulgar  errors.  They  are  copies  of 
portraits  for  which  the  poet  or  the  historian  never 
sat.  We  have  an  example  in  Pindar.  During 
how  many  years  has  he  been  called  the  tumult- 
uous, the  ungovernable;  as  if  his  fiery  and  un- 
broken fancy,  scorning  the  rein,  continually  ran 
away  with  his  judgment.  Yet  Pindar  is  as 
methodical  as  Collins,  or  Gray.  To  borrow  an 
illustration  from  his  own  races,  he  has  his 
thoughts  always  in  hand,  and  their  fiercest 
plunges  only  carry  the  chariot  nearer  to  the  goal. 

A  single  thread  guides  the  critical  eye  through 
a  labyrinth  of  character.  It  infers  the  lowly  sta- 
tion, as  it  might  prove  the  ancientness  of  Homer, 
from  internal  evidence.  He  tells  us  what  a  thing 
cost.  Some  pages  of  the  Iliad  are  a  priced  cata- 
logue. In  the  style  of  Virgil  the  intimation  of 
rank  is  equally  plain.  He  retreats  from  all  con- 


60          pleasures  of  literature 

tact  with  poverty.  In  the  herdsman's  hut,  or 
under  a  tree  with  a  shepherd,  he  has  the  air  of  a 
person  of  quality,  unbending  into  simplicity  and 
bucolics.  He  receives  a  maple  cup  from  a  peasant 
with  the  grace  of  a  courtier,  who  is  thinking  all 
the  time  upon  the  last  amphora  which  Maecenas 
opened. 

The  history  of  Crabbe  offers  a  proof  of  this 
penetration.  Lord  Jeffrey  had  remarked  of  his 
similes  that,  ingenious  and  elaborate  as  they  are, 
they  seemed  to  be  the  thoughtful  productions  of  a 
busy  and  watchful  fancy,  rather  than  the  spon- 
taneous growth  of  a  heated  imagination.  The 
poet  admitted  the  conjecture  to  be  well  founded : 
"Jeffrey  is  quite  right;  my  usual  method  has 
been  to  think  of  such  illustrations,  and  insert 
them  after  finishing  a  tale." 

An  agreeable  function  of  Criticism  is  exercised 
in  the  recognition  of  a  picture,  or  a  book,  by  some 
distinctive  expression  which  is  ascertained  to  be- 
long to  a  particular  workman.  A  connoisseur 
lays  his  hand  on  Mieris  without  hesitation.  He 
carries  the  catalogue  in  his  eye  down  a  gallery-; 
spelling  Rembrandt  in  shadows;  while  the  deep 
purple  of  a  distance  prepares  him  for  Poussin. 

The  most  original  genius  has  a  favourite  for- 


Criticism  61 

mula.  In  Titian  it  is  a  crimson  cap;  in  Tinto- 
retto, the  lowering  face  of  a  Moor;  in  Wouverman, 
a  white  horse;  in  Domenichino,  an  angel;  in  N. 
Berghem,  a  woman  riding  on  an  ass;  in  Hobbema, 
the  dewy  lustre  of  trees.  Cuyp  glows  all  over  in 
a  haze  of  warmth ;  and  the  little  farce  upon  canvas 
discloses  Jan  Steen.  Even  amid  the  inexhausti- 
ble fruitfulness  of  Rubens,  Reynolds  recognised 
one  smooth,  flat  face,  continually  recurring. 
Every  "Madonna"  of  Raffaelle  is  descended  from 
the  same  type.  The  high,  smooth,  round  fore- 
head, with  the  thin  hair,  reappears  in  each  change 
of  posture  and  expression.  The  Dutch  artist  is 
the  most  striking  instance  of  all.  Under  his  hand, 
the  river  of  Eden  is  a  canal ;  and  he  builds  Baby- 
lon upon  piles. 

Authors  afford  equal  opportunities  to  critical 
discernment.  A  phrase,  or  an  epithet  in  a  book, 
is  a  particular  hue,  or  shade,  of  a  picture.  It 
identifies  the  writer.  We  know  a  Chaucer,  as  we 
know  a  Van  Eyck.  St.  Paul  uses  one  word 
twenty-six  times,  and  it  occurs  in  no  other  part 
of  the  New  Testament,  except  in  the  parable  of 
the  Barren  Fig  Tree.  South  is  discovered  imme- 
diately by  the  lash  of  a  sentence,  and  Andrewes  by 
the  mechanism  of  his  exposition.  A  costly  Lat- 


62         pleasures  of  Xtterature 

inism  encircles  the  gold  of  Taylor;  and  the  rising 
incense  of  devotion— sweeter  than  any  odours  of 
poetry — assures  a  reader  that  he  is  bending  over 
a  homily  of  Leigh  ton. 

Pope  wished  to  have  translated  Homer  in  Asia, 
with  present  life  to  enlighten  the  past.  In  our 
days,  he  might  have  brought  all  Persia  to  his 
lawn.  The  printing-press  has  made  criticism  a 
citizen  of  every  kingdom.  It  is  naturalised  in 
antiquity.  It  talks  with  Aristotle,  and  lives  with 
Cuvier.  Every  harvest  field  of  learning  should 
be  gleaned.  No  fragment  of  information  is  with- 
out a  value.  If  a  colour  and  a  word  establish  the 
relationship  of  a  picture  and  a  book,  a  single  fact 
in  natural  history  may  suffice  to  disprove  it.  Take 
a  simple  instance.  The  Batrachomuomachia  was 
long  circulated  with  the  Homeric  poems;  but 
criticism  is  prepared  to  pronounce  it  spurious, 
from  finding  in  it  a  reference  to  the  cock.  That 
bird  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Iliad  or  Odyssey,  and 
is  supposed  to  have  been  a  stranger  in  Greece, 
until  the  soldiers  of  Alexander  brought  home 
the  jungle-fowl  of  India,  and  domesticated  it  in 
Europe. 

Criticism  pursues  with  lively  interest  the  wind- 
ing and  contrary  paths,  by  which  gifted  men  have 


Criticism  63 

travelled  to  fame.  Genius  is  the  instinct  of  enter- 
prise. A  boy  came  to  Mozart,  wishing  to  compose 
something,  and  inquiring  the  way  to  begin.  Mo- 
zart told  him  to  wait.  "You  composed  much 
earlier."  "  But  asked  nothing  about  it,"  replied 
the  musician.  M.  Angelo  is  hindered  in  his  child- 
ish studies  of  art ;  Raffaelle  grows  up  with  pencil 
and  colours  for  playthings:  one  neglects  school 
to  copy  drawings,  which  he  dared  not  bring  home; 
the  father  of  the  other  takes  a  journey  to  find  his 
son  a  worthier  teacher.  M.  Angelo  forces  his 
way;  Raffaelle  is  guided  into  it.  But  each  looks 
for  it  with  longing  eyes.  In  some  way  or  other, 
the  man  is  tracked  in  the  little  footsteps  of  the 
Child.  Dryden  marks  the  three  steps  of  progress, 
as  quoted  by  Disraeli : 

"  What  the  child  admired, 
The  youth  ENDEAVOURED,  and  the  man  ACQUIRED." 

He  was  an  example  of  his  own  theory.  He 
read  Polybius,  with  a  notion  of  historic  exactness, 
before  he  was  ten  years  old.  Witnesses  rise  over 
the  whole  field  of  learning.  Pope,  at  twelve, 
feasted  his  eyes  in  the  picture  galleries  of  Spenser. 
Murillo  filled  the  margin  of  his  schoolbooks  with 
drawings.  Le  Brun,  in  the  beginning  of  child- 


64          pleasures  of  literature 

hood,  drew  with  a  piece  of  charcoal  on  the  walls  of 
the  house.  The  young  Ariosto  quietly  watched 
the  fierce  gestures  of  his  father,  forgetting  his  dis- 
pleasure in  the  joy  of  copying  from  life,  into  a 
comedy  which  he  was  writing,  the  manner  and 
speech  of  an  old  man  enraged  with  his  son. 

Cowley,  in  the  history  of  his  own  mind,  shows 
the  influence  of  boyish  fancies  upon  later  life.     He 
compares  them  to  letters  cut  in  the  bark  of  a 
young  tree,  which  grow  and  widen  with  it.     We 
are  not  surprised  to  hear  from  a  schoolfellow  of 
the  Chancellor  Somers  that  he  was  a  weakly  boy, 
who  always  had  a  book  in  his  hand,  and  never 
looked  up  at  the  play  of  his  companions;    to 
learn  from  his  affectionate  biographer,  that  Ham- 
mond, at  Eton,  sought  opportunities  of  stealing 
away  to  say  his  prayers ;  to  read  that  Tournefort 
forsook  his  college  class,  that  he  might  search  for 
plants  in  the  neighbouring  fields;  or  that  Smea- 
ton,  in  petticoats,  was  discovered  on  the  top  of 
his  father's  barn,  in  the  act  of  fixing  the  model  of 
a  windmill  which  he  had  constructed.    These 
early  traits  of  character  are  such  as  we  expect  to 
find  in  the  cultivated  lawyer,  who  turned  the  eyes 
of  his  age  upon  Milton;  in  the  Christian,  whose 
life  was  one  varied  strain  of  devout  praise ;  in  the 


Criticism  65 

naturalist,  who  enriched  science  by  his  discov- 
eries; and  in  the  engineer,  who  built  the  Eddy- 
stone  Lighthouse. 

The  instinct  of  enterprise  is  combined  with  the 
instinct  of  labour.  Genius  lights  its  own  fire ;  but 
it  is  constantly  collecting  materials  to  keep  alive 
the  flame.  When  a  new  publication  was  sug- 
gested to  Addison,  after  the  completion  of  the 
Guardian,  he  answered,  "I  must  now  take  some 
time,  pour  me  delasser,  and  lay  in  fuel  for  a  future 
work."  The  strongest  blaze  soon  goes  out  when 
a  man  always  blows  and  never  feeds  it.  Johnson 
declined  an  introduction  to  a  popular  writer  with 
the  remark,  that  he  did  not  desire  to  converse  with 
a  person  who  had  written  more  than  he  had  read. 

It  is  interesting  to  follow  great  authors  or  paint- 
ers in  their  careful  training  and  accomplishing  of 
the  mind.  The  long  morning  of  life  is  spent  in 
making  the  weapons  and  the  armour,  which  man- 
hood and  age  are  to  polish  and  prove.  Ussher, 
when  only  twenty  years  old,  formed  the  daring 
resolution  of  reading  all  the  Greek  and  Latin 
Fathers,  and  with  the  dawn  of  his  thirty-ninth 
year  he  completed  the  task.  Hammond,  at  Ox- 
ford, gave  thirteen  hours  of  the  day  to  philosophy 
and  classical  literature,  wrote  commentaries  on 


66          pleasures  ot  Xiterature 

all,  and  compiled  indexes  for  his  own  use.  Mil- 
ton's youthful  studies  were  the  landscapes  and 
the  treasury  of  his  blindness  and  want. 

The  sister  art  teaches  the  same  lesson.  Claude 
watched  every  colour  of  the  skies,  the  trees,  the 
grass,  and  the  water.  The  younger  Vandervelde 
transferred  the  atmospheric  changes  to  large 
sheets  of  blue  paper,  which  he  took  in  the  boat 
when  he  went,  as  he  said  in  his  Dutch-English,  a 
"skoying"  on  the  Thames.  "I  have  neglected 
nothing,"  was  the  modest  explanation  which  N. 
Poussin  gave  of  his  success. 

With  these  calls  to  industry  in  our  ears,  we  are 
not  to  be  deaf  to  the  deep  saying  of  Lord  Brooke, 
the  friend  of  Sidney,  that  some  men  overbuild 
their  nature  with  books.  The  motion  of  our 
thoughts  is  impeded  by  too  heavy  a  burden ;  and 
the  mind,  like  the  body,  is  strengthened  more  by 
the  warmth  of  exercise  than  of  clothes.  When 
BufTon  and  Hogarth  pronounced  genius  to  be 
nothing  but  labour  and  patience,  they  forgot  his- 
tory and  themselves.  The  instinct  must  be  in  the 
mind,  and  the  fire  be  ready  to  fall.  Toil  alone 
would  not  have  produced  the  Paradise  Lost,  or  the 
Principia.  The  born  dwarf  never  grows  to  the 
middle  size.  Rousseau  tells  a  story  of  a  painter's 


Criticism  67 

servant  who  resolved  to  be  the  rival  or  the  con- 
queror of  his  master.  He  abandoned  his  livery 
to  live  by  his  pencil.  But,  instead  of  the  Louvre, 
he  stopped  at  a  sign-post.  Mere  learning  is  only 
a  compiler,  and  manages  the  pen  as  the  compos- 
itor picks  out  the  type — each  sets  up  a  book  with 
the  hand.  Stone-masons  collected  the  dome  of 
St.  Paul's,  but  Wren  hung  it  in  air. 

Ease,  when  it  has  become  constitutional,  is 
called  Grace.  Until  he  had  got  this  one  tune  by 
heart,  Gibbon  wrote  slowly.  The  simpler  periods 
of  Goldsmith  flowed  with  painful  effort.  "  Every- 
body," was  his  own  complaint,  "wrote  better, 
because  he  wrote  faster  than  I."  Cowper  con- 
fesses that  his  pleasant  Task  was  constructed 
with  weariness  and  watching.  Burke's  gorgeous 
imagery  had  very  little  of  that  rush  which  is  com- 
monly heard  in  it.  Addison  wore  out  the  patience 
of  his  printer;  and  Dr.  Warton  assures  us  that, 
when  a  whole  impression  of  a  Spectator  was  nearly 
worked  off,  he  would  frequently  stop  the  press  to 
insert  a  new  preposition. 

The  authority  of  Pope  seems  to  contradict  the 
argument.  He  declared  that  what  he  wrote  the 
quickest  pleased  him  best,  as  the  Essay  on  Criti- 
cism, the  Rape  of  the  Lock,  and  a  large  portion  of 


68         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

the  Iliad.  But  the  miracle  melts  as  we  look  at  it. 
Of  the  first  poem  the  materials  were  previously 
digested  in  prose;  the  Sylph-machinery  was  a 
supplement  to  the  second;  and  the  manuscript 
of  the  third  may  be  consulted  in  our  National 
Library.  A  truer  portrait  of  the  poet  in  his  study 
will  be  found  in  his  epistle  to  Jervas,  where  he 
reminds  his  friend  of  their  meditative  hours : 

"  How  oft  in  pleasing  tasks  we  wear  the  day, 
While  summer  suns  roll  unperceived  away! 
How  oft  our  slowly  growing  works  impart, 
While  images  reflect  from  art  to  art." 

Speed  in  composition  is  a  questionable  advan- 
tage. History  records  two  names  which  may 
represent  the  swift  and  the  lingering  pen — Lope 
de  Vega  and  Milton.  We  see  one  pouring  out 
verses  more  rapidly  than  a  secretary  could  write 
them;  the  other  building  up,  in  the  watches  of 
the  dark,  a  few  majestic  lines:  one  leaving  his 
treasures  to  be  easily  compressed  into  a  single 
volume;  the  other,  to  be  spread  abundantly  over 
forty-six  quartos:  one  gaining  fifteen  pounds; 
the  other,  a  hundred  thousand  ducats :  one  sitting 
at  the  door  of  his  house,  when  the  sun  shone,  in  a 
coarse  coat  of  grey  cloth,  and  visited  only  by  ad- 


Criticism  69 

miring  strangers  from  foreign  countries ;  the  other 
followed  by  crowds  whenever  he  appeared,  while 
even  the  children  shouted  after  him  with  delight. 

It  is  only  since  the  earth  has  fallen  on  both, 
that  the  fame  and  the  honours  of  the  Spaniard 
and  the  Englishman  have  been  changed.  He  who 
nearly  finished  a  comedy  before  breakfast,  now 
lies  motionless  in  his  small  niche  of  monumental 
biography;  and  he  who,  long  choosing,  began  late, 
is  walking  up  and  down  in  his  singing  robes,  and 
with  the  laurel  round  his  head,  in  the  cities  of 
many  lands;  having  his  home  and  his  welcome 
in  every  devout  heart,  and  upon  every  learned 
tongue  of  the  Christian  world. 

Of  course,  the  frequent  writer  will,  in  time,  be 
quick.  The  practised  is  the  ready  hand.  Raf- 
faelle,  who  painted  a  head  with  such  fine  touches 
that  it  seems  to  have  been  finished  by  single  hairs, 
could  almost  work  as  fast  as  Rembrandt,  who 
laid  on  his  colour  with  a  palette-knife.  Dryden's 
mastery  of  language  and  rhyme  enabled  him  to 
remit  to  Tonson  an  instalment  of  seven  thousand 
five  hundred  verses;  Johnson,  from  the  fullness 
of  his  mind,  produced  Rasselas  in  the  evenings  of 
one  week;  and  Scott  wrote  the  last  two  volumes 
of  Waverley  in  twenty-six  afternoons  of  summer. 


7o         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

Genius  easily  hews  out  its  figure  from  the  block ; 
but  the  sleepless  chisel  gives  it  life.  We  have,  in 
the  practice  of  Titian,  an  interesting  view  of  the 
steps  by  which  excellence  is  won.  He  began  a 
picture  by  striking  off  an  outline  in  four  pencil- 
lings;  he  then  put  it  aside,  sometimes  allowing 
months  to  go  by  before  he  looked  at  it  again ;  when 
he  returned  to  his  work,  it  was  with  the  watchful- 
ness of  a  rival.  The  last  corrections  were  given 
by  daily  touches.  Virgil  composed  verses  in  the 
same  manner.  He  commenced  a  figure  or  a  land- 
scape in  rough  sketches.  Rare  drawings  of  a 
painter  should  we  have  found  in  his  scattered 
notes.  What  studies  did  he  make  of  that  Cartha- 
ginian queen,  before  she  rose  from  his  poetry  in 
the  splendour  of  her  charms.  He  produced  a  few 
lines  in  the  morning,  and  spent  days  or  months  in 
shaping  and  adorning  them.  We  see  the  artist 
rubbing  in  tints  over  the  delicate  surface  of 
words: 

"  And  Titian's  colour  looks  like  Virgil's  art." 

BufTon  has  told  us  how  patiently  he  moulded 
his  loose  sentences  into  symmetry.  So  often  did 
he  turn  a  paragraph  in  his  mind  and  on  his  tongue 
—speaking  it  over  and  over  until  his  ear  was  satis- 


Criticism  71 

fied — that  he  was  able  to  repeat  whole  pages  of 
his  works. 

This  transparency  of  diction  is  only  found  in 
productions  of  the  strongest  genius.  A  burning 
invention  makes  it.  That  exquisite  material, 
through  which  we  gaze  on  our  woods  and  gardens, 
obtains  its  crystalline  beauty  after  undergoing  the 
processes  of  the  furnace.  It  was  melted  by  fire 
before  the  rough  particles  of  sand  disappeared, 
and  the  fibres  of  the  leaf,  or  the  streaks  of  the 
tulip,  were  discerned.  Similar  operations  refine 
language.  Imagination  mingles  the  harsh  ele- 
ments of  composition  until  each  coarse,  shapeless 
word  is  absorbed  by  the  heat,  and  brightens  slowly 
into  that  smooth  and  unclouded  style,  through 
which  the  slightest  emotions  of  the  heart,  and  the 
faintest  colours  of  fancy,  are  reflected. 

The  theologian,  the  poet,  the  historian,  or  the 
philosopher,  who  has  this  lucidness  of  utterance, 
is  certain  of  a  wide  and  lasting  reputation.  It 
made  Ariosto  the  Homer  of  Italy,  and  gathered 
all  ranks  and  ages  to  his  knees.  Taste  and  sci- 
ence, love  and  beauty,  hung  upon  his  lips.  He 
was  the  companion  of  the  maiden  and  the  scholar 
of  a  starry  Galileo,  and  a  knight  in  armour. 

Whatever  is  pure  is  also  simple.     It  does  not 


72          pleasures  of  Xfterature 

keep  the  eye  on  itself.  The  observer  forgets  the 
window  in  the  landscape  it  displays.  A  fine  style 
gives  the  view  of  Fancy — its  figures,  its  trees,  or 
its  palaces— without  a  spot.  But  to  a  diseased 
eye,  crystal  is  cold.  Hence  it  happens  that  the 
lawful  masters  of  language  are  sometimes  de- 
posed, for  a  season,  by  the  daring  of  literary  revo- 
lutionists. A  barbaric  uproar  drowns  the  musical 
voices  of  Addison  and  his  brethren.  One  idiom 
jangles  another  out  of  tune.  In  reading  some 
modern  authors,  who  have  nothing  of  the  tripod 
or  the  oracle,  except  the  frenzy  and  the  darkness, 
we  are  reminded  of  the  pleasant  correction  which 
Menage  inserted  in  the  Delices  d'  Esprit  of  a  flighty 
Frenchman:  "  Au  lieu  de  Delices,  lisez  Delires." 

The  exhibition  of  real  strength  is  never  gro- 
tesque. Distortion  is  the  agony  of  weakness.  It 
is  the  dislocated  mind  whose  movements  are  spas- 
modic. Pressure  of  thought  may  overburden 
sentences  with  meaning,  as  in  the  Analogy  of  But- 
ler, or  the  rhymes  of  Cowley.  Swift  confessed  to 
Pope  that  he  had  been  obliged  to  read  parts  of  the 
Essay  on  Man  twice  over.  It  was  not  obscure, 
but  deep.  The  Bard  of  Gray  and  Collins's  Ode  on 
the  Poetical  Character  seem  dark;  the  former  from 
its  historical,  the  latter  from  its  metaphysical, 


Criticism  73 

allusions.  Numerous  passages  of  Milton  are  in- 
comprehensible to  a  reader  whose  knowledge  is 
not  large  in  chivalry,  romance,  or  classical  legends. 
Take  the  magnificent  description  of  Satan  arming 
his  legions,  and  feeling  his  heart  swell  with  pride, 
as  he  gazes  upon  the  myriads  before  him : 

"  For  never  since  created  man 
Met  such  embodied  force,  as  named  with  these 
Could  merit  more  than  that  small  infantry 
Warr'd  on  by  cranes;  though  all  the  giant  brood 
Of  Phlegra  with  th'  heroic  race  were  joined 
That  fought  at  Thebes  and  Ilium,  on  each  side 
Mix'd  with  auxiliar  gods;  and  what  resounds 
In  fable  or  romance  of  Uther's  son, 
Begirt  with  British  and  Armoric  knights; 
And  all  who  since,  baptised  or  infidel, 
Jousted  in  Aspramont  or  Montalban, 
Damasco,  or  Morocco,  or  Trebisond, 
Or  whom  Biserta  sent  from  Afric  shore, 
When  Charlemain,  with  all  his  peerage,  fell 
By  Fontarabia." 

In  such  cases,  notes,  which  are  the  dictionary 
of  ignorance,  will  open  the  chambers  of  imagery 
to  one  who  knocks:  and  when  the  sentiment,  or 
the  illustration,  has  been  disengaged,  it  delights 
the  eye  of  taste  by  its  symmetry  or  grandeur. 
The  Divine  Comedy  should  have  its  handbook  as 


74          pleasures  of  Xiterature 

well  as  the  Coliseum.  The  idioms  of  genius  will 
always  present  obscurities  to  the  uninformed; 
they  are  to  be  acquired,  as  a  man  learns  to  trans- 
late a  dialect.  When  the  reader  is  competent, 
genius  is  bright.  We  do  not  expect  Waller  to 
appreciate  Milton.  But,  in  general,  he  who  un- 
derstands himself  is  easily  understood.  Jortin 
said,  "The  man  who  is  not  intelligible,  is  not 
intelligent." 


XII 

CRITICISM  ENFORCES  UNITY  OF 
PURPOSE 

HE  runs  uncertainly  who  has  two  goals.  The 
flight  becomes  a  flutter;  the  race,  a  circle. 
Raffaelle  might  lay  down  his  pencil  to  build  a 
cathedral;  and  L.  da  Vinci  fill  a  page  with  a  pro- 
blem and  a  caricature.  Some  gifted  adventurer 
is  always  sailing  round  the  world  of  art  and  sci- 
ence, to  bring  home  costly  merchandise  from  every 
port.  But  the  warning  truth  still  remains: 

"  One  science  only  will  one  genius  fit: 
So  wide  is  art,  so  narrow  human  wit." 

No  fact  in  ancient  history  is  less  disputable  than 
its  divisions.  The  Greek  stage  encouraged  no 
Garrick  to  smile  away  pathos  in  farce.  The  mad- 
dened Orestes  never  disappeared  in  the  mimic  of 
the  clouds. 

The  caution  is  wise:  poet  and  hero  are  weak 
on  one  side.  Milton's  confession  of  having  only 

75 


76  pleasures  of  ^Literature 

the  use  of  his  left  hand  in  prose,  is  a  text  and  a 
homily  in  Criticism.  Longinus  says,  that  as  often 
as  Demosthenes  affected  to  be  pleasant  in  a 
speech,  he  made  himself  ridiculous;  and  if  he 
happened  to  raise  a  laugh,  it  was  chiefly  upon 
himself.  Dante  showed  an  imperfect  acquaint- 
ance with  the  capacities  of  Art,  when  he  recom- 
mended the  Revelation  of  St.  John  to  Giotto,  as 
a  subject  for  his  pencil.  The  enemies  of  Boileau 
beheld  him  shorn  in  an  ode;  Corneille  stumbled 
in  comedy;  Sterne  was  beaten  by  his  valet  in 
learning  Italian;  and  a  regimental  schoolmaster 
might  have  taken  down  Marlborough  in  spelling. 
Instances  of  intellectual  infirmity  are  seen  ad- 
monishing the  scholar  upon  every  side.  Some  mus- 
cle, or  nerve,  of  arm  or  of  eye,  is  always  weak. 
Pope  tossed  Theobald  into  the  Dunciad,  but  he, 
clinging  to  the  back  of  Shakespeare,  outran  his 
tormentor  as  an  editor.  The  illustration  of  Temple 
is  forcible  as  it  is  homely:  "The  abilities  of  man 
must  fall  short  on  one  side  or  other,  like  too  scanty 
a  blanket  when  you  are  abed :  if  you  pull  it  upon 
your  shoulders,  you  leave  your  feet  bare;  if  you 
thrust  it  down  upon  your  feet,  your  shoulders  are 
uncovered." 
Art,  not  less  eloquently  than  Literature,  teaches 


ot  purpose  77 

her  children  to  venerate  the  single  eye.  Remem- 
ber Matsys.  His  representations  of  miser-life  are 
breathing.  A  forfeited  bond  twinkles  in  the  hard 
smile.  But  follow  him  to  an  altar-piece.  His 
Apostle  has  caught  a  stray  hue  from  his  usurer. 
Features  of  exquisite  beauty  are  seen  and  loved; 
but  the  old  nature  of  avarice  frets  under  the  calm 
of  devotion.  Pathos  staggers  on  the  edge  of 
farce.  The  sacred  pictures  of  Matsys  are  the 
sermons  of  Sterne. 

Talents  to  strike  the  eye  of  posterity  should  be 
concentrated.  Rays,  powerless  while  they  are 
scattered,  burn  in  a  point.  "A  man  ought  to  be 
one."  Remember  Bentley  maiming  Milton; 
Wren  blundering  into  Gothic;  and  Butler  daub- 
ing a  portrait ;  The  thoughts  of  the  mind  should 
move  on  some  precious  design,  as  the  pivots  of  the 
watch  turn  on  the  drilled  diamond.  Then  the 
mind  keeps  time,  and  does  its  work.  Indeed, 
great  men  have  always  one  governing  series  of 
thoughts.  We  are  not  surprised  to  be  told  that 
a  fly  interested  Malebranche  more  than  all  the 
Greek  and  Roman  history.  What  a  touching 
example  of  doing  one  thing  is  furnished  by  Palissy, 
the  potter!  When  will  the  furnace  burn  into  the 
clay  the  colours  of  that  Italian  cup?  Again,  his 


7s  pleasures  of  OUterature 

vase  is  in  the  oven;  but  the  fire  sinks,  the  fuel  is 
gone;  he  has  no  money  to  buy  more; — but  cour- 
age! he  brings  his  garden  trellises,  his  doors,  his 
furniture.  He  piles  them  on  the  flame;  the  spell 
is  wrought;  the  victory  is  won ;  the  colours  live! 

The  thought  is  pleasing,  that  authors  might 
reap  a  larger  harvest,  by  writing  books,  as  the 
brothers  Both  painted  landscapes,  or  as  Rubens 
and  Snyders  sometimes  worked  together.  Do 
not  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  appear  hand-in- 
hand  ?  Pope  was  enriched  by  the  gold  of  Boling- 
broke,  notwithstanding  its  alloy.  Would  not 
Shakespeare  and  Ben  Johnson  have  played  a 
grander  strain  in  concert?  It  is  certain  that 
the  revision  of  friends  often  imparts  a  new  lustre. 
In  this  way  Lucretius  grew  brighter  under  the  pen 
of  Cicero;  the  Maxims  of  Rochefoucauld  received 
the  exquisite  temper  of  their  edge;  the  sharpest 
eyes  in  Port  Royal  picked  out  the  overlooked 
weeds  of  Pascal,  or  gathered  passages  for  his  Pro- 
vincial Letters;  and  the  friendly  solicitude  of 
Seeker  disentangled  the  intricate  argument  of 
Butler. 


XIII 

CRITICISM  THE  SOURCE  OF  MANY 
DELIGHTS. 

EVERY  river  flows  into  branching  streams — 
pleasant  to  the  eye  and  the  ear — that  lose 
themselves  among  green  meadows,  or  the  pebbles 
of  village  brooks.  Criticism,  pursuing  its  way 
through  the  fruitful  country  of  learning,  detaches 
from  its  current  many  small  tributaries,  of  which 
each  has  its  own  little  patches  of  cornland  and 
trees  to  wander  along.  All  possess  interest  for  the 
patient  explorer;  whether  he  considers  the  vary- 
ing times  of  the  mind's  flower  and  ripeness,  the 
influence  of  air  and  climate  upon  its  bloom  and 
growth,  the  art  of  repairing  injured  works,  or  the 
obligations  of  authors  to  their  predecessors. 

Lord  Bacon  considered  that  invention  in  young 
men  is  livelier  than  in  old,  and  that  imaginations 
stream  into  their  minds  more  divinely.  He  has 
not  defined  the  boundary  of  youth.  His  own 
thirty-sixth  year  had  come,  when  he  committed 

79 


so          pleasures  ot  ^literature 

to  the  press  those  golden  meditations  which  he 
called  Essays.  But  it  is  noticeable  that  his  style 
opened  into  richer  bloom  with  every  added  sum- 
mer of  thought.  Later  editions  contain  passages 
of  beauty  not  found  in  the  earlier;  and  his  Ad- 
vancement of  Learning,  published  when  he  was 
forty-four,  beams  with  the  warmest  lights  of 
Fancy.  His  contemporary  Hobbes  was  sixty- 
three  before  he  put  forth  his  evil  claim  to  be 
remembered  in  the  Leviathan.  Sterne  was  forty- 
six  when  Tristram  brought  London  to  his  door, 
and  furnished  him  with  the  boast  that  he  was 
engaged  to  dinners  fourteen  deep.  I  turn  to 
greater  examples.  Shakespeare  concluded  his 
dramatic  life  at  forty-seven,  with  the  charming 
story  of  the  Tempest,  of  his  Plays  the  most  joyous 
and  airy;  it  is  probable  that  Milton  had  reached 
the  same  age  when  he  began  the  Paradise  Lost. 
Why  should  the  broad  river  become  narrower 
while  unnumbered  springs  continue  to  flow  into 
it  ?  Raffaelle  died  in  his  thirty-eighth  year,  with 
his  hand  on  the  Transfiguration:  are  we  to 
look  upon  that  picture  as  the  mightiest  effort  of 
an  art  that  could  climb  no  higher?  Was  there 
no  fourth  manner  for  the  solemn  light  and  stillness 
of  riper  manhood,  which  would  have  melted 


Source  ot  /IDan£  S>eU0bts         81 

warmer  colours  into  his  earlier  drawing,  speak- 
ing more  fervently  to  the  eye,  without  weakening 
his  appeal  to  the  affections  ? 

It  is  impossible  to  make  absolute  laws  for  the 
mind.  It  has  seasons  of  ripeness  and  beauty 
when  the  colour  and  the  flavour  of  its  fruit  are  in 
perfection.  But  they  are  irregular;  sometimes 
they  come  early.  Ben  Johnson  wrote  Every  Man 
in  his  Humour  at  twenty-two;  and  Paul  Potter 
dropped  his  pencil  before  he  was  twenty-nine. 
Occasionally  the  life  of  the  intellect  seems  to  run 
itself  out  in  one  effort.  All  the  fine  juice  of  the 
vine  flows  into  a  single  cluster.  Zurbaran's  early 
picture  divided  with  Raffaelle  the  applause  of 
criticism  in  the  Louvre.  Akenside,  at  twenty- 
three,  had  a  lustre  of  invention  which  each  suc- 
ceeding year  seems  to  have  diminished.  It  might 
be  that  the  scholar  overlaid  the  poet;  that  the 
essence  of  his  fancy  was  drawn  off  in  the  labora- 
tory; or  that  the  torrent  of  youth  brought  down 
a  few  lumps  of  gold,  and  his  mind  had  no  rich  vein 
imbedded  in  it,  for  the  full  strength  of  manhood 
to  work. 

Sometimes  the  flower  unfolds  itself  in  the  noon. 
Francia  stood  on  the  threshold  of  his  fortieth  year 
when  a  picture  by  Perugino  made  him  a  painter. 


82          pleasures  of  ^Literature 

In  a  few  instances,  it  keeps  its  choicest  odours  for 
the  evening,  or  the  night.  Dryden  was  nearly 
seventy  when  he  completed  his  charming  copies 
of  Chaucer:  a  cripple,  he  tells  us,  in  his  limbs,  but 
conscious  of  no  decay  in  the  faculties  of  his  soul, 
excepting  that  his  memory  was  somewhat  weaker, 
and  to  compensate  for  this  loss  he  found  his  judg- 
ment increased.  "Thoughts  come  crowding  in 
so  fast  upon  me  that  the  only  difficulty  is  to  choose 
or  to  reject."  He  had  said,  "  In  the  beginning  of 
summer  the  days  are  almost  at  a  stand,  with  little 
variation  of  length,  or  shortness.  The  same  is 
the  method  of  nature  in  the  frame  of  man.  He 
seems  at  forty,  to  be  fully  in  the  summer  tropick." 
M.  Angelo  had  nearly  reached  the  years  of 
Dryden  when  he  gave  the  Last  Judgment  to 
the  world.  The  splendour  of  Titian  shone  most 
towards  its  setting;  his  wonderful  portrait  of  Pope 
Paul  the  Third  was  painted  at  seventy-two,  and 
his  magnificent  Martyrdom  of  St.  Lawrence  at 
eighty-one.  Sixty-four  summers  only  mel- 
lowed into  ruddier  tints  the  nosegay  of  Rubens; 
and  Buff  on  assured  a  friend  that,  after  pass- 
ing fifty  years  over  his  desk,  he  was  every  day 
learning  to  write.  Who  forgets  the  example  of 
Cowper? 


Source  ot  flDang  Delfgbts         83 

But  though  the  times  of  fruit-bearing  may  vary 
in  different  minds,  we  generally  find  several  fine 
seasons  following  each  other  in  succession.  Con- 
sider the  five  years  of  Milton's  life,  between  1634 
and  1639,  when  he  wrote  Comus,  Lycidas,  Arca- 
des, and  his  shorter  poems;  take  the  same  period 
in  the  history  of  Shakespeare,  beginning  in  1606 
with  Macbeth,  and  ending,  in  1611,  with  Oibello; 
or  cut  off  an  equal  length  from  the  record  of  Jer- 
emy Taylor's  struggles  and  toils :  see  him  contrib- 
uting to  his  own  and  every  age,  between  1647  anc^ 
1652,  the  Liberty  of  Prophesying,  the  Great  Exem- 
plar, the  Holy  Living  and  Dying,  and  all  his  nobler 
sermons.  These  are  precious  chapters  in  the  bio- 
graphy of  Genius;  we  ought  not  to  be  surprised 
if  some  pages  of  weaker  interest  are  found  before 
or  after  them. 

Walking  in  the  fields,  I  have  seen  the  sun — go- 
ing down  in  great  glory — suddenly  cut  by  a  strip 
of  dark  cloud,  which,  nevertheless,  was  shown  by 
the  colour  dimly  shining  through  it  to  be  con- 
nected with  that  magnificent  luminary;  and  while 
I  stood,  the  vapour  melted,  and  the  sun  reap- 
peared in  all  its  large  effulgence.  My  thoughts 
turned  to  the  great  lights  which  have  been  given 
to  rule  the  intellectual  day.  I  called  to  remem- 


84          pleasures  of  literature 

brance  how  the  broad  splendour  of  Genius,  as  it 
rolls  along  the  sky  of  life  from  the  morning  until 
the  evening,  has  its  cold  intervals  of  shadow. 
The  radiance  of  its  manifestation  is  often  broken. 
An  inferior  book  or  picture  comes  between  the 
rising  and  the  setting  glory.  A  black  bar  of 
cloud  seems  to  divide  the  light  in  the  middle. 
It  is  a  noble  and  comforting  recollection  that 
when  the  gloom  passes  the  mind  breaks  forth 
again,  and  the  poet  or  the  philosopher  sinks 
behind  the  horizon  of  time  as  he  rose  above  it,  in 
a  full  orb. 

The  light  of  the  morning  and  the  evening  is 
equally  beautiful,  but  it  differs  in  tone  and  hue. 
So  does  the  imagination  in  the  young  and  the  old. 
Yet  it  may  stream  divinely  into  each.  The  ten- 
der green  and  the  nightingale's  hymn  belong  to 
the  spring;  the  full  rose  and  the  red  moon,  to  the 
summer  and  the  harvest.  The  portraitures  of 
dreams  upon  the  eyes  under  trees,  the  smiles  of 
love,  and  the  enchantments  of  hope,  are  the  joy 
and  the  heritage  of  youth;  the  guardianship  of 
angels,  the  victories  of  the  soul,  and  the  calm 
beauty  of  Paradise,  are  the  illumination  and  the 
reward  of  manhood  and  age. 

It  has  been  a  subject  of  ingenious  speculation 


Source  of  /lDan£  Deligbts         85 

if  country,  or  weather,  cherish  or  check  intellect- 
ual growth.  Jeremy  Collier  considered  that  the 
understanding  needs  a  kind  climate  for  its  health, 
and  that  a  reader  of  nice  observation  might  ascer- 
tain from  the  book  in  what  latitude,  season,  or 
circumstances,  it  had  been  written.  The  oppon- 
ents are  powerful.  Reynolds  ridiculed  the  notion 
of  thoughts  shooting  forth  with  greater  vigour  at 
the  summer  solstice  or  the  equinox;  Johnson 
called  it  a  fantastic  foppery. 

The  atmospheric  theory  is  as  old  as  Homer. 
Its  laureate  is  Montesquieu.  The  more  northerly 
you  go,  he  said,  the  sterner  the  man  grows.  You 
must  scorch  a  Muscovite  to  make  him  feel.  Gray 
was  a  convert.  One  of  the  prose  hints  for  his 
noble  fragment  of  a  didactic  poem  runs  thus:  "It 
is  the  proper  work  of  education  and  government 
united  to  redress  the  faults  that  arise  from  the 
soil  and  air."  Berkeley  entertained  the  same 
feeling.  Writing  to  Pope  from  Leghorn,  and 
alluding  to  some  half-formed  design  he  had  heard 
him  mention  of  visiting  Italy,  he  continues: 
"What  might  we  not  expect  from  a  Muse  that 
sings  so  well  in  the  bleak  climate  of  England,  if 
she  felt  the  same  warm  sun,  and  breathed  the 
same  air,  with  Virgil  and  Horace?" 


86          pleasures  of  Xiterature 

When  Dyer  attributes  the  faults  of  his  Fleece 
to  the  Lincolnshire  fens,  he  only  awakes  a  smile. 
Keats  wrote  his  Ode  to  a  Nightingale — a  poem  full 
of  the  sweet  south — at  the  foot  of  Highgate  Hill. 
But  we  have  the  remark  of  Dryden — probably 
the  result  of  his  own  experience — that  a  cloudy 
day  is  able  to  alter  the  thoughts  of  a  man;  and, 
generally,  the  air  we  breathe,  and  the  objects  we 
see,  have  a  secret  influence  upon  our  imagination. 
Burke  was  certain  that  Milton  composed  //  Pen- 
seroso  in  the  long-resounding  aisle  of  a  moulder- 
ing cloister,  or  ivied  abbey.  He  beheld  its  solemn 
gloom  in  the  verse.  The  fine  nerves  of  the  mind 
are  braced,  and  the  strings  of  the  harp  are  tuned, 
by  different  kinds  of  temperature.  "I  think," 
Warburton  remarked  to  Hurd,  "you  have  often 
heard  me  say,  that  my  delicious  season  is  the 
autumn— the  season  which  gives  most  life  and 
vigour  to  my  intellectual  faculties.  The  light 
mists,  or,  as  Milton  calls  them,  the  steams  that 
rise  from  the  fields  in  one  of  these  mornings,  give 
the  same  relief  to  the  views  that  the  blue  of  the 
plum  gives  to  the  appetite." 

Mozart  composed  whenever  he  had  the  oppor- 
tunity, in  the  soft  air  of  fine  weather.  His  Don 
Giovanni  and  the  Requiem  were  written  in  a  bowl- 


Source  of  dDans  Delfgbts         87 

ing-green  and  a  garden.  Chatterton  found  a  full 
moon  favourable  to  poetic  invention,  and  he  often 
sat  up  all  night  to  enjoy  its  solemn  shining.  The 
spirits  of  Shelley  rose  joyously  whenever  the  wind 
blew  from  the  north-west.  Winter-time  was 
most  agreeable  to  Crabbe.  He  delighted  in  a 
heavy  fall  of  snow,  and  it  was  during  a  severe 
storm  which  blocked  him  within  doors,  that  he 
portrayed  the  strange  miseries  of  Sir  Eustace 
Grey. 

The  art  of  emendation  demands  the  union  of 
many  talents.  Porson  adjusting  the  text  of  Eu- 
ripides, is  the  architect  restoring  a  palace.  The 
pursuit  of  Genius  into  its  treasure-house  is  an 
inferior,  but  a  more  interesting  accomplishment. 
It  is  one  which  all  readers  may  share,  and  which 
deserves  to  be  called  a  pleasure,  if  not  an  object 
and  advantage,  of  literature.  The  need  of  it 
is  the  greater,  as  memories  are  often  weak.  Ad- 
dison  copied  into  the  Spectator,  from  an  Italian 
ethical  work  of  the  sixteenth  century,  a  story 
about  a  mirror  and  a  lady,  but  omitted  to  state 
its  foreign  descent.  The  occupation  is  to  be  en- 
joyed with  caution.  A  coincidence  is  not  a 
robbery.  The  most  agreeable  of  all  Satirists  has 
playfully  exhibited  a  clever  curiosity  gone  astray, 


88          pleasures  of  ^Literature 

in  the  portrait  of  a  scholar  who  read  all  books: 

"  And  all  he  reads  assails, 
From  Dry  den's  Fables  down  to  Durfey's  tales; 
With  him  most  authors  steal  their  works — not  buy ; 
Garth  did  not  write  his  own  Dispensary." 

Swift  seems  to  indicate  the  fair  distinction  be- 
tween the  theft  of  the  scribbler  and  the  loan  of 
the  author,  by  saying  that  the  lighting  a  candle 
at  a  neighbour's  fire  does  not  affect  our  property 
in  the  wick  and  flame.  Milton  held  a  torch  to 
Ovid,  and  Taylor  to  Chrysostom.  But  both  car- 
ried materials  for  burning.  The  ignitible  sub- 
stance belonged  to  themselves. 

Some  imitation  is  involuntary  and  unconscious. 
No  mighty  intellect  can  be  altogether  lost.  Time 
only  covers  to  reproduce  it:  there  is  nothing  in 
the  poet,  or  the  philosopher, 

"  But  doth  suffer  a  sea-change 
Into  something  rich  and  strange." 

Plato  dies  in  the  school  to  appear  in  the  pulpit. 
Genius  is  nourished  from  within  and  without.  Its 
food  is  self-grown  and  gathered.  Like  a  rich- 
bearing  tree,  it  absorbs  the  juices  of  the  soil  and 
the  balm  of  the  air,  but  draws  from  its  own  sap 
the  life  that  swells  out  the  trunk,  and  gives  colour 
and  flavour  to  the  fruit. 


XIV 
THE  LESSONS  OF  CRITICISM 

AN  artist  once  objected  to  a  famous  painter, 
that  he  could  never  tell  where,  in  nature, 
he  found  those  gorgeous  hues  which  seem  to 
inflame  his  landscape,  and  shower  purple  and 
crimson  over  the  field  and  the  river.  The  ear 
of  Society  caught  up  the  reply:  "  I  daresay  that 
you  never  see  such  colours ;  but  do  you  not  wish 
that  you  could?" 

One  of  the  lessons  of  criticism  is  the  folly  of 
making  our  own  knowledge  a  standard  of  proba- 
bility. Consider  the  bone  of  a  reptile  in  the  hand 
of  a  ploughman,  and  of  Owen.  The  common  ob- 
server notices  only  one  hue  of  green,  while  the 
cultivated  eye  perceives  a  grey  tint  in  the  sun's 
reflection  on  leaves  and  grass.  An  Abyssinian 
traveller  saw  in  the  Bay  of  Tajoura  the  azure  and 
gold  of  the  most  extravagant  picture;  and  Mrs. 
Houstoun  speaks  of  the  autumn  foliage  in  Ameri- 
can woods  as  bewildering  the  describer  by  its  daz- 
89 


9o          pleasures  of  Xtterature 

zling  varieties.  "  If  a  painter  were  to  endeavour 
to  depict  them  to  life,  he  would  be  called  as  mad 
as  Turner."  A  testimony  yet  more  extraordinary 
is  heard  in  Colonel  Mitchell's  exploring  expedition 
into  the  interior  of  Tropical  Australia.  One  day 
his  path  conducted  him  into  a  valley  so  sublimely 
grotesque  that  he  called  it  "Salvator  Rosa."  A 
river  was  surrounded  by  hills,  of  which  some  took 
the  shape  of  cathedrals  in  ruins,  and  others 
of  decayed  fortifications.  The  comparison  that 
the  scene  suggested  to  the  visitor  was  a  sepia 
landscape  of  Martin. 

Poetical  images — which  are  the  lights  and  land- 
scapes of  fancy — claim  the  benefit  of  these  illus- 
trations. There  are  deep  recesses  of  feeling  in  the 
heart  of  genius,  which  seem  not  less  marvellous 
to  the  common  reader,  than  the  Australian  vale 
was  to  the  traveller.  What  is  unknown  is  not 
impossible.  Disbelief  of  things  because  they  are 
contrary  to  our  experience  is  fatal  to  entertain- 
ment and  truth,  both  in  literature  and  in  morals. 

A  trifling  circumstance  occurs  to  me  in  Thom- 
son's account  of  the  Dorsetshire  Downs,  where  he 
speaks  of  their  woody  slopes  dipping  into  shadow, 
the  broad  patches  of  cornland,  and  enormous 
flocks  scattered  over  uninhabited  tracts  of  coun- 


QLessons  ot  Criticism  91 

try — these  he  calls  "white."  But  the  epithet 
was  an  accommodation  of  truth  to  poetical  cus- 
tom; when  he  composed  the  Seasons,  the  sheep 
of  Dorset  were  usually  washed  with  red  ochre. 
Suppose  that  he  had  preserved  this  local  pecul- 
iarity, and  written : 

"  Pure  Dorsetian  downs 

The  boundless  prospect  spread,  here  shagged  with  woods, 
There  rich  with  harvests,  and  there  red  with  sheep  ;  " 

the  whole  array  of  town  critics  would  have  been 
in  arms,  impatient  for  the  assault,  yet  certain  of 
defeat.  The  amplest  knowledge  has  the  largest 
faith.  Ignorance  is  always  incredulous.  Tell  an 
English  cottager  that  the  belfries  of  Swedish 
churches  are  crimson,  and  his  own  white  steeple 
furnishes  him  with  a  contradiction. 

Criticism  checks  admiration  in  excess.  Litera- 
ture has  its  superstitions  and  intolerance.  An 
acute  scholar  remarked  that  there  is  not  an  anom- 
aly of  grammar,  or  metre,  in  Milton,  which  has 
not  been  praised  as  an  excellence.  Raffaelle  is 
injured  by  the  same  idolatry.  Look  at  the  mi- 
raculous Draught  of  Fisles.  What  a  boat! 
Richardson  saw  in  it  only  the  choice  of  a  lesser 
evil,  and  wonderful  skill  in  overcoming  it;  but 
Opie  has  proved  that  the  resources  of  art  might 


92          pleasures  of  Xiterature 

easily  have  subdued  the  difficulty  without  offence 
to  the  judgment.  What  is  true  of  Raff  aelle's  com- 
mentators in  one  instance,  is  true  of  Shakespeare's 
continually.  The  idol  is  faultless  in  the  eyes  of 
his  worshippers.  An  ingenious  writer  compared 
his  poetry  to  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  and  recom- 
mended the  reader  of  the  drama — like  the  visitor 
in  the  church — when  displeased  by  a  defect  to 
take  a  step  further  and  gaze  upon  a  beauty.  The 
advice  is  good,  if  the  blemish  be  not  vaunted  for 
a  charm.  There  ought  to  be  some  strong  shades 
between  the  devotee  and  the  heretic. 

We  have  authors  in  morocco  who  would  not  be 
recognised  by  their  contemporaries — they  are  so 
bedizened  with  dress,  and  spangled  with  flattery. 
Much  of  this  exaggerated  praise  may  be  resolved 
into  self-love.  The  critic,  like  the  traveller, 
scrawls  his  name  upon  a  Pyramid.  Jones  lives 
with  Cheops;  Drake  with  Shakespeare. 

It  was  an  observation  of  Pope,  that  poets,  who 
are  always  afraid  of  envy,  have  quite  as  much 
reason  to  be  alarmed  at  flattery.  He  looked  upon 
Shakespeare  as  writing  to  the  people  without  views 
of  reputation,  and  having,  at  his  first  appearance, 
no  other  aim  than  to  procure  a  subsistence;  or, 
as  he  puts  the  opinion  in  his  poignant  verse — 


Xessons  of  Criticism  93 

"  Shakspere  (whom  you  and  every  play-house  bill 
Style  the  divine,  the  matchless,  what  you  will) 
For  gain,  not  glory,  winged  his  roving  flight, 
And  grew  immortal  in  his  own  despite." 

Shakespeare  himself  confirms  Pope's  estimate 
of  his  character.  He  made  his  fortune,  and  forgot 
his  plays.  Having  created  a  home  and  a  treasure, 
he  threw  away  the  wand.  It  had  done  its  work 
in  sending  him  to  Stratsford.  We  shall  find  a 
profitable  moral  in  Goldsmith's  amusing  com- 
plaint, that  he  was  regarded  as  a  partisan,  when 
his  only  object  was  to  write  a  book  that  would  sell. 

A  deep  reverence  for  the  poet  may  be  combined 
with  the  liveliest  sense  of  his  weakness  and  false 
taste.  His  magnificent  images,  his  loving  wis- 
dom, and  his  noble  sentiments,  were  the  beam- 
ings of  that  sun-like  mind  which  shone  over  the 
whole  world  of  nature  and  fancy;  they  were  in- 
separably his  own.  His  mock  fights,  his  artificial 
thunder,  his  quibbles  and  grossness,  were  outward 
accidents  of  situation  and  circumstances.  They 
were  so  many  fragments  from  his  festival  of  imag- 
ination and  humour,  scornfully  flung  to  stay  the 
hunger  of  the  pit. 

Why  should  Shakespeare  escape  the  common 
lot?  Works  of  Genius  must  be  imperfect.  Irregu- 


94          pleasures  of  literature 

larity  is  a  law  of  their  existence  and  splen- 
dour. Brilliancy,  twilight,  and  shadow,  are  so 
many  inequalities  of  surface  along  a  body  essen- 
tially luminous.  Criticism,  which  does  not  ob- 
serve the  gloom,  is  like  an  imperfect  telescope  that 
discovers  no  spots  in  the  sun.  The  true  observer 
admits  the  polemical  flatness  of  Paradise  Lost, 
and  the  overloading  sombreness  of  Rembrandt's 
Night  Waic}).  The  low  comedy  of  Damaetas 
and  Mopsa  displeases  his  ear  in  the  Arcadia  of 
Sidney,  and  he  wishes  to  shade  away  the  deep 
lamp-black  in  the  Transfiguration  of  Raffaelle. 
His  love  of  Spenser  does  not  reconcile  his  eye  to 
a  woodman  in  Lincoln  Green  during  the  enchanted 
reign  of  Arthur;  and  he  thinks  that  S.  Rosa  might 
have  selected  a  fitter  ornament  than  a  cannon  for 
the  tent  of  Holofernes. 

Criticism  has  more  dignified  duties  and  nobler 
pleasures  than  these.  It  is  the  protector  of  the 
unfriended,  and  the  avenger  of  the  smitten.  New- 
ton found  that  a  star,  examined  through  a  glass 
tarnished  by  smoke,  was  diminished  into  a  speck 
of  light.  But  no  smoke  ever  breathed  so  thick 
a  mist  as  envy  or  detraction.  If  Milton  had  come 
to  us  in  the  judgment  of  Waller,  his  original 
brightness  would  have  sunk  into  a  glimmer.  In- 


Xessons  ot  Criticism  95 

ferior  talents  suffer  in  their  degree.  Southey 
spoke  of  Flecknoe  as  far  from  being  the  despicable 
scribbler,  whom  Dryden  pelted  with  such  con- 
tumely; and  Johnson  desired  to  see  the  collected 
works  of  that  Dennis,  who  is  only  viewed  by  most 
people,  bespattered  and  raving  in  the  pillory  of 
Pope. 

We  learn  from  the  satirist  himself  what  perils 
are  encountered  by  merit.  He  published  the  Es- 
say  on  Man  without  his  name.  Mallet,  a  noisy 
contractor  of  literary  all-work,  called  at  Twick- 
enham soon  after  its  appearance.  Pope,  who 
delighted  to  do  everything  by  stratagem,  inquired 
the  news  of  books.  His  visitor  informed  him  that 
the  latest  publication  was  something  about  Man : 
that  he  had  glanced  at  it,  but,  'detecting  the  in- 
competency  of  the  writer,  soon  tossed  it  aside. 
Pope  with  exquisite  cruelty  told  him  the  secret. 

He  might  sit  in  his  grotto,  and  amuse  himself 
with  inventing  new  tortures  for  the  purgatory  of 
Dunces:  his  fame  and  fortune  were  sure.  But 
suppose  the  author  of  the  Essay  to  have  been 
struggling  up  the  hill — a  Chatterton  with  a  Wai- 
pole  for  a  patron, — that  pert  fasehood  of  Mallet 
might  have  overset  all  his  hopes.  How  often  has 
such  a  catastrophe  befallen  the  worthiest  adven- 


96          pleasures  of  ^Literature 

turer!  Putting  to  sea  with  his  first  freight,  the 
enemy— in  the  strong  image  of  Jeremy  Collier — 
has  fired  the  beacons,  drawn  down  the  posse  at 
his  landing,  and  charged  him  while  he  was  stag- 
gering on  the  beach. 

In  such  cases  criticism  appears  like  a  goddess 
in  Homeric  warfare — awful,  yet  sweet.  Insulted 
genius  is  crowned  after  its  death;  and  the  elo- 
quent panegyric  is  a  chamber  where  the  dead 
author  lies  in  state.  The  scorn  and  the  anguish  of 
a  life  are  recompensed  by  the  magnificence  of  the 
mourning;  while  a  beautiful  colour  seems  to 
bathe  the  sleeper  from  the  overhanging  canopy. 
These  funeral  rites  should  be  reserved  for  the 
princes  of  learning.  Criticism  bribed  by  the 
affections,  by  passion,  or  by  interest,  sometimes 
arrays  the  usurper  in  the  trappings  of  royalty. 
Flattery  sits  at  the  head;  and  the  bier  is  em- 
blazoned with  escutcheons.  But  rank  in  litera- 
ture is  neither  inherited  nor  bestowed.  If  the 
soul  of  genius  did  not  animate  the  author,  his 
collapsed  reputation  is  only  lifted  up  like  the 
body  of  Arvalan  in  Eastern  story.  The  motion 
comes  from  the  tread  of  the  bearers,  as  the  pow- 
erless, bloodless  frame  sways  to  and  fro  with 
its  own  ungoverned  and  corrupting  weight. 


Xessons  of  Criticism  97 

I  do  not  presume  to  speak  of  criticism,  as  it 
now  lives  and  flourishes.  Much,  however,  of  the 
pleasure  of  literature  rises  out  of  its  skilful  and 
honest  exercise.  If  there  be  in  it  little  of  the 
splenetic  heart  of  a  former  century,  we  find  abund- 
ance of  untimely  fruit,  and  confident  foreheads. 
Its  defects  are  twofold — a  want  of  modesty,  and 
a  want  of  knowledge.  A  remedy  of  the  former 
is  to  be  found  in  the  removal  of  the  latter.  A 
silent  novitiate  of  five  years  would  sow  the  mind. 
The  true  critic,  like  the  deep  philosopher,  pro- 
duces his  opinions  as  doubts.  Only  the  astrologer 
and  the  empyric  never  fail. 

A  thoughtful  person  is  struck  by  the  despotic 
teaching  of  the  modern  school.  The  decisions  of 
the  eighteenth  century  are  reversed,  and  the  au- 
thority of  the  judges  is  ignored.  Addison's  chair 
is  filled  by  Hazlitt;  a  German  mist  intercepts 
Hurd.  Our  classical  writers  daily  recede  farther 
from  the  public  eye.  Milton  is  visited  like  a  mon- 
ument. The  scholarly  hand  alone  brushes  the 
dust  from  Dryden.  The  result  is  unhappy.  Crit- 
ics and  readers,  by  a  sort  of  necessity,  refer  every 
production  of  the  mind  to  a  near  standard.  The 
age  weighs  itself.  One  dwarf  is  measured  by  an- 
other. The  fanciful  lyrist  looks  tall  when  Pindar 


98          pleasures  of  Xiterature 

is  put  out  of  sight.  This  is  like  boarding  up  West- 
minster Abbey,  and  all  the  cathedrals,  and  de- 
ciding on  the  merits  of  a  church,  by  comparing  it 
with  the  newest  Gothic  design  that,  sent  too  soon 
to  the  roadside,  implores  of  every  passer-by  the 
charity  of  a  steeple. 


XV 

POETRY,  ITS  SHAPES  AND  BEAUTIES 

F)OETRY  is  the  first  pleasure  of  literature  that 
captivates  the  eye  and  the  heart.  It  is  the 
pearl  shining  in  the  bosom  of  the  story.  What- 
ever of  beautiful,  instructive,  or  alluring,  belongs 
to  philosophy,  history,  or  fiction,  is  wrapped  up 
in  poetry.  It  sets  the  hardest  lesson  to  music. 
Epicurus  might  have  rejoiced  to  send  his  pupils 
to  Lucretius,  and  the  Roman  farmer  have  found 
his  text-book  in  the  Georgics. 

The  Temple  of  Fame  contains  no  sepulchres  so 
enriched  by  love  as  those  of  the  poets.  Their 
memory  is  bound  up  with  the  histories  of  kings 
and  nobles.  Davenant  records,  in  musical  prose, 
some  of  the  rare  achievements  of  minstrelsy.  A 
tyrant  lived  with  the  praise  and  died  with  the 
blessing  of  Greece,  for  gathering  the  dust  of  Ho- 
mer into  an  urn;  Thebes  was  preserved  by  the 
harp  of  Pindar;  the  elder  Scipio  lay  in  the  bosom 
of  Ennius ;  Laelius  was  flattered  by  the  rumour  of 
99 


ioo         pleasures  of  literature 

helping  Terence;  Virgil  brightened  the  purple  of 
an  Emperor;  and  the  Capitol  shouted  for  Petrarch. 

Poetry  deserves  its  honours  as  the  firstborn  of 
Literature,  and  the  fairest.  It  is  the  richness  of 
many  gardens  growing  into  one  flower,  and  sow- 
ing itself  over  the  world  in  shapes  of  beauty  and 
colour,  which  differ  with  the  soil  that  receives  and 
the  sun  that  ripens  the  seed.  In  Persia,  it  comes 
up  the  rose  of  Hafiz;  in  England,  the  many-blos- 
somed tree  of  Shakespeare.  And  what  culture  it 
demands!  That  worthy,  Thomas  Jackson,  whose 
works  Southey  would  have  taken  with  him  to  the 
desert  island,  has  a  good  remark:  "That  very 
fruitful  wits  in  all  other  kinds  of  learning  cannot 
raise  this  plant  of  Eden,  without  'more  tender 
care  and  greater  cherishing  than  any  other  branch 
or  slip  of  the  tree  of  knowledge.' " 

Imagination  is  the  union  of  likenesses,  and  their 
exhibition  in  new  forms.  It  is  composed  of  sev- 
eral conceptions  folded  into  each  other.  For 
example:  The  memory  entertains  an  idea  of  a 
palace;  imagination  embellishes  it  with  splendid 
apartments,  crowns  it  with  gilded  pinnacles,  or 
embosoms  it  in  gardens.  The  strange  animal  of 
the  traveller  bristles  into  the  Dragon  of  Spenser. 
The  Helen  of  Zeuxis  was  the  blended  harmony  of 


poetry' 5  Sbapes  anfc  Beauties     101 

a  five-fold  loveliness ;  and  the  Hercules  of  Glycon 
showed  the  ennobled  symmetry  of  his  most  ath- 
letic contemporaries.  Raffaelle  and  Guido  pro- 
fessed to  have  their  model  enshrined  in  one  certain 
idea  of  beauty;  yet  it  was  not  created  in  the  mind. 
The  features  of  life,  in  its  purest  developments, 
were  spiritualised  by  imagination.  A  common 
face  is  thrown  upon  the  glass,  and  the  sun  bright- 
ens it.  The  smallest  seed  contains  the  flower. 
The  Greek  sculptor  never  saw  Jupiter,  but  he  had 
gazed  upon  heroes.  Milton  walked  in  a  garden 
before  he  planted  Eden. 

In  this  way  the  most  exquisite  combinations 
of  the  poet  are  traced  back  to  their  beginnings; 
whether  Milton  dazzles  us  with  the  flash  of  un- 
numbered swords  in  his  dark  Consistory;  or  Virgil 
brings  Minerva  shouting  to  the  Greeks  in  the 
flames  of  Troy;  or  Tasso  illuminates  the  hilltop 
with  the  feet  of  an  angel ;  or  Shelley  compares  life 
to  a  dome  of  glass  which 

"  Stains  the  white  radiance  of  Eternity." 

In  each  case  the  writer  had  something  to  work 
upon.  The  outline  lay  in  his  recollection.  The 
visible  led  him  to  the  unseen.  The  conception 
opened  into  the  image. 


loz         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

If  we  divide  poetry  into  classic  and  romantic, 
the  former  will  be  found  to  bewitch  the  taste  and 
the  heart;  the  latter,  the  imagination  and  the 
senses.  A  flowing  outline  of  calm  dignity  marks 
the  Parthenon  and  Samson  Agonistes.  Broken 
shadows,  mystery,  and  awe  endear  an  old  Gothic 
house  and  a  canto  of  Spenser.  The  enchanted 
forest  of  Tasso  casts  a  darker  shade  than  the  grove 
of  Lucan.  Warton  supposes  a  reader  to  be  more 
impressed  by  the  black  plumes  on  the  helmet 
in  Otranto,  and  the  gigantic  arm  on  the  great 
staircase,  than  by  any  paintings  of  Ovid,  or 
Apuleius. 

However  the  beautiful  in  thought  may  be 
distinguished — classic  or  Gothic,  descriptive  or 
philosophical — the  lover  of  fancy  welcomes  it. 
He  drinks  at  every  fountain  of  taste.  In  each 
colour  and  bend  of  the  wide  landscape  he  discov- 
ers something  to  admire:  the  cloud-capt  battle- 
ments and  flashing  standards  of  the  epic;  the 
dim  mountain  heights  of  the  contemplative;  the 
sunny  slope  of  the  pastoral;  or  the  heaving  turf 
of  the  elegist.  Whatever  is  lovely  and  of  good 
report  is  within  the  reach  of  his  sympathy.  He 
turns  from  the  humour  of  Chaucer  to  the  dreams 
of  Collins;  as  he  feels  opposite  emotions  roused 


poetry's  Sbapes  ant>  Beauties     103 

and  gratified  by  the  Woodman  of  Gainsborough, 
and  the  Saint  of  Francia. 

In  a  true  epic,  he  admires  the  palace  of  the 
Muse.  Each  book  is  a  state-room  full  of  princes 
and  heroes.  Long  lines  of  historic  ancestors  and 
splendid  achievements  rise  to  his  memory.  He 
reads  Homer  with  some  of  the  sentiment  with 
which  he  visits  Windsor.  Reflective  poetry  ex- 
erts its  power  in  a  different  manner.  The  palace 
moulders  into  the  cathedral;  tombs  replace  the 
ancestral  pictures ;  the  cloister  is  the  royal  cham- 
ber; and  death  breathes  the  kingly  consecra- 
tion of  time.  Gayer  scenes  sometimes  invite 
him.  Sir  Hudibras  talks  Babylonian;  Gilpin's 
post-chaise  takes  him  up  for  Edmonton;  Pope 
introduces  a  conversation-piece,  sparkling  as 
Watteau's;  Thomson  leads  him  among  the  ripe 
fruit,  and  under  the  warm  shade  of  the  garden 
wall ;  or,  in  idler  mood,  he  gathers  a  few  sonnets, 
the  hedgeflowers  of  fancy,  and  dreams  over  a 
stanza  of  Parnell  and  Shenstone. 

The  advantages  of  poetry  are  many,  as  its 
pleasures  are  common.  It  makes  dark  weather 
fair,  and  blue  skies  bluer.  The  dismallest  day — 
a  giant  of  clouds — sinks  before  it.  Not  only 
Shakespeare  and  Milton  bear  the  sling:  the  fatal 


io4         pleasures  of  literature 

pebble  may  be  taken  from  a  village  brook.  The 
insolent  Philistine,  who  lords  it  over  a  noble  spirit, 
is  often  vanquished  and  plundered  by  one  of  a 
ruddy  countenance,  coming  from  the  country 
and  the  sheepfold. 

It  is  worth  observing  how  much  our  out-of-door 
pleasures  are  heightened  by  the  poets.  Nature, 

"  By  all  her  blooms  and  mingled  murmurs  dear," 

is  brought  closer  to  the  heart.  The  fields  look 
greener;  brighter  people  walk  among  the  corn. 
Wordsworth  crowds  the  forest  arches  with  the 
equipage  of  Olympus;  Spenser  gilds  the  mossy 
roots  of  old  beeches  with  the  angel  face  of  Una; 
Shakespeare  sprinkles  moonbeams  to 

"  Tip  with  silver  all  the  fruit-tree  tops  ;  " 

Southey 

"  Mottles  with  mazy  shade  the  orchard  slope;  " 

and  Bloomfield  gathers  the  white  clouds  to  rest 
in  the  evening  sky,  like  a  flock  of  sheep  with  the 
shepherd. 

Poetry,  in  general,  resembles  a  fieldpath  which 
the  whole  village  may  walk  upon.  Most  of  its 
beauties  are  unenclosed.  But  here  and  there  a 
choice  tree,  or  a  fine  glimpse  of  scenery,  is  shut  in. 
Only  a  learned  taste  may  open  the  gate  and  show 


poetrg's  Sbapes  an&  Beauties     105 

the  grounds.  Akenside,  Collins,  Gray,  and  T. 
Warton  are  examples  of  this  kind.  The  principle 
of  their  style  is  twofold:  embracing — (i)  the 
construction  of  a  language  differing  from  that  of 
Society;  and  (2)  the  arrangement  of  it,  according 
to  the  laws  of  design  and  colour.  The  first  object 
is  sought  by  blending  ancient  idioms  with  those 
of  home;  and  the  second  by  disposing  the  thought 
to  captivate  the  eye. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  gratification,  which  such 
productions  afford,  lies  beyond  the  sentiment,  or 
the  description,  and  is  independent  of  either.  A 
Greek  or  Latin  phrase,  suddenly  encountered,  is 
like  a  sketch  of  a  ruin,  or  a  costume,  in  a  travel- 
ler's notebook.  It  carries  the  mind  back  into  the 
scenery  and  the  customs  of  ancient  people.  "  By 
these  means,"  it  has  been  elegantly  observed,  "the 
genius  of  the  poet,  instead  of  leading,  seems  only 
to  accompany  us  into  the  regions  of  his  beautiful 
creations,  while  the  activity  of  the  fancy  multi- 
plies into  a  thousand  forms  the  image  it  has  re- 
ceived; and  the  memory,  gathering  up  the  most 
distant  associations,  surrounds  the  poet  with  a 
lustre  not  his  own." 

These  are  the  enclosed  beauties  of  poetry — 
sheltered  garden-beds  of  curious  flowers — not  to 


io6         pleasures  ot  literature 

be  judged  by  comparison  with  the  open  landscape, 
but  to  be  visited  and  enjoyed  for  their  own  par- 
ticular charms.  There  can  be  no  uniformity  of 
excellence.  Each  style  of  invention — poetic, 
architectural,  artistic,  or  musical — has  its  own 
laws,  and  demands  a  trial  which  shall  be  based 
upon  them.  Marino  and  Cowley  would  not  call 
Petrarch  and  Wordsworth  as  witnesses  to  char- 
acter. Ariosto  demurs  to  a  summing  up  of 
Quinctilian.  Julio  Romano  represents  the  Hours 
feeding  the  Horses  of  the  Sun ;  Landseer  takes  his 
palfrey  from  the  meadow  to  prance  with  cavalier 
or  lady,  in  the  green  array  of  the  olden  time. 
What  then  ?  Have  we  one  measure  for  the  most 
poetical  and  the  truest  of  painters?  Must  the 
allegoric  and  the  real  be  thrown  into  the  same 
scale  ? 

Look  at  the  argument  in  another  way.  Hang 
Wilkie's  Rent-Day  and  a  picture  of  P.  Veronese 
together.  We  are  contrasting  an  interior  in  Gold- 
smith's Auburn  with  Milton's  grandest  composi- 
tions from  mythology.  In  one,  the  elements  of 
interest  are  few  and  simple— the  old  furniture,  the 
weeping  woman,  the  hard  broker;  nothing  speaks 
to  the  imagination,  or  the  taste;  the  appeal  is  to 
the  heart.  In  the  other,  the  materials  of  impres- 


's  Sbapes  anfc  Beauties     107 

sion  are  many  and  costly — sculptured  columns, 
sumptuous  trains  of  servants,  the  plume  and  state- 
liness  of  war.  The  heart  is  untouched;  all  strikes 
the  eye,  and  is  addressed  to  it.  Bring  the  beggar 
from  the  street,  and  he  has  a  pulse  and  a  tear  for 
Wilkie;  but  call  the  scholar  from  his  prints  and 
statues,  to  appreciate  the  grace  and  the  dignity 
of  Verona.  The  accomplished  reader  tries  to 
unite  the  feelings  of  sympathy  and  of  taste.  He 
acknowledges  each  to  be  a  master,  and  admires 
both  if  he  can. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  considering  those  de- 
lights which  poetry  supplies  to  the  mind.  But 
it  has  other  attractions.  Next  to  its  language  is 
the  tone  of  its  voice.  It  makes  love  to  the  ear, 
and  wins  it  with  music.  Certain  passages  possess 
a  beauty  altogether  unconnected  with  their  mean- 
ing. The  reader  is  conscious  of  a  strange,  dreamy 
sense  of  enjoyment,  as  of  lying  upon  warm  grass 
in  a  June  evening,  while  a  brook  tinkles  over 
stones  in  the  glimmer  of  trees.  Sidney  records  the 
effect  of  the  old  ballad  on  himself;  and  Spence 
informs  us  that  he  never  repeated  particular  lines 
of  delicate  modulation  without  a  shiver  in  his 
blood,  not  to  be  expressed.  Boyle  was  conscious 
of  a  tremor  at  the  utterance  of  two  verses  in 


io8          pleasures  of  ^literature 

Lucan;  and  Derham  knew  "one  to  have  a  chill 
about  his  head,"  upon  reading,  or  hearing,  the  fifty- 
third  chapter  of  Isaiah,  and  David's  lamentation 
for  Jonathan.  How  deep  is  the  magic  of  sound 
may  be  learned  by  breaking  some  sweet  verses 
into  prose.  The  operation  has  been  compared 
to  gathering  dewdrops,  which  shine  like  jewels 
upon  the  flower,  but  run  into  water  in  the  hand. 
The  elements  remain,  but  the  sparkle  is  gone. 

Of  all  the  measures  in  which  imagination  takes 
its  pastime,  the  heroic  line  of  Milton  and  Shakes- 
peare is  the  most  rich  and  changeful.  It  is  full  of 
opportunities.  Every  colour  and  shade  plays  on 
its  broken  surface.  No  gleam  of  sun  is  lost.  Its 
broad  mirror  gives  space  for  the  magnificence  of 
imagery,  and  the  long-drawn  pomp  of  description ; 
for  the  snowy  piles  of  alabaster,  where  the  chief 
of  the  angelic  guard  kept  watch  near  the  Eastern 
gate  of  Eden,  his  shield  and  sword  "hung  high 
with  diamond  flaming";  and  for  the  bark  of  the 
Egyptian,  with  its  silken  sails  and  painted  fans, 
gliding  on  its  own  shadow  of  gold  along  the  glassy 
Cydnus. 

Milton  played  on  his  metre  like  his  organ.  He 
brings  out  with  a  daring  finger  every  grand  and 
various  note,  sometimes— with  wonderful  effect— 


's  Sbapes  ant>  Beauties     109 

striking  a  momentary  crash  of  discord  into  the  full 
swell  of  the  music.  He  disregards  syllables.  A 
poet,  not  unworthy  to  criticise  him,  quotes  the 
verses  in  which  Death  threatens  Satan  at  the  gates 
of  Hell: 

"  Back  to  thy  punishment, 
False  fugitive!  and  to  thy  speed  add  wings, 
Lest  with  a  whip  of  scorpions  I  pursue 
Thy  lingering — or  with  one  stroke  of  this  dart 
Strange  horror  seize  thee,  and  pangs  unfelt  before;" 

and  remarks,  "The  hand  of  a  master  is  felt 
through  every  movement  of  this  sentence,  espe- 
cially towards  the  close,  where  it  seems  to  grapple 
with  the  throat  of  the  reader;  the  hard,  staccato 
stops,  that  well  nigh  take  the  breath,  in  attempt- 
ing to  pronounce  'or  with  one  stroke  of  this  dart/ 
are  followed  by  an  explosion  of  sound  in  the  last 
line  like  a  heavy  discharge  of  artillery." 

Shenstone  found  his  ear  always  pleased  by  the 
introduction  of  words — like  watry — which,  con- 
sisting of  two  syllables,  have  the  fulness  of  three. 
The  employment  of  spondees,  with  the  melody 
of  dactyls,  is  another  secret  of  Milton's  versifica- 
tion. If  Shakespeare  be  studied  with  equal  atten- 
tion, the  whole  power  and  compass  of  the  English 
language  will  be  understood.  Perhaps  it  is  sus- 


1 10         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

ceptible  of  no  inflection  of  harmony,  not  even  the 
low  thrill  of  the  flageolet,  which  is  not  brought 
out  in  the  passionate  or  familiar  tones  of  its  im- 
perial master. 

The  rhyming  couplet  may  claim  the  second 
rank.  Dryden  took  the  tinkle  from  the  chime, 
by  his  artful  and  various  pauses.  At  once  majes- 
tic and  easy,  with  the  warble  of  the  flute  and  the 
trumpet-peal,  he  fills  and  entrances  the  ear.  The 
mellifluence  of  Pope,  as  Johnson  called  it,  has 
the  defect  of  monotony.  Exquisite  in  the  sweet 
rising  and  falling  of  its  clauses,  it  seldom  or  never 
takes  the  ear  prisoner  by  a  musical  surprise.  If 
Pope  be  the  nightingale  of  our  verse,  he  displays 
none  of  the  irregular  and  unexpected  gush  of  the 
songster.  He  has  no  variations.  The  tune  is 
delicate,  but  not  natural.  It  reminds  us  of  a  bird, 
all  over  brilliant,  which  pipes  its  one  lay  in  a 
golden  cage,  and  has  forgotten  the  green  wood 
in  the  luxury  of  confinement.  But  Dryden's 
versification  has  the  freedom  and  the  freshness  of 
the  fields.  Running  through  his  noblest  harmo- 
nies, we  catch,  at  intervals,  that  rude  sweetness 
of  a  Scottish  air  which  he  himself  heard  in  Chau- 
cer. This  is  a  great  charm.  He  preserved  the 
simple,  unpremeditated  graces  of  the  earlier  coup- 


poetry's  Sbapes  an&  JSeautfes     1 1 1 

let,  its  confluence  and  monosyllabic  close,  while  he 
added  a  dignity  and  a  splendour  unknown  before. 
Pope's  modulation  is  of  the  ear;  Dryden's  of  the 
subject.  He  has  a  different  tone  for  Iphigenia 
slumbering  under  trees,  by  the  fountain  side;  for 
the  startled  knight,  who  listens  to  strange  sounds 
within  the  gloom  of  the  wood ;  and  for  the  courtly 
beauty  to  whom  he  wafted  a  compliment. 

The  stanza  to  which  Spenser  has  given  a  name, 
combines  the  advantages  of  the  blank  verse  with 
the  graces  of  the  rhymed.  Dryden  confessed  his 
obligations  to  a  concord  of  sounds  for  helping  him 
to  a  thought,  and  some  of  the  most  elaborate  de- 
lineations of  Spenser  appear  to  have  grown  out  of 
the  necessities  of  his  metre.  Warton  instances 
the  binding  of  Furor  by  Guyon : 

"  With  hundred  iron  chains  he  did  him  bind, 
And  hundred  knots,  which  did  him  sore  constrain  ; 
Yet  his  great  iron  teeth  he  still  did  grind, 
And  grimly  gnash,  threatening  revenge  in  vain  : 
His  burning  eyes,  whom  bloody  streaks  did  stain, 
Stared  full  wide,  and  threw  forth  sparks  of  fire; 
And  more  for  rank  despight,  than  for  great  pain, 
Shakt  his  long  locks  coloured  like  copper  wire, 
And  bit  his  tawny  beard  to  show  his  raging  ire." 

But  for  the  tyranny  of  rhyme,  we  might  have 
wanted  the  vivid  circumstances  of  the  fifth,  sixth, 


112 


pleasures  of  literature 


and  eighth  lines.  The  stanza,  in  Spenser's  hand, 
is  equal  to  any  Rembrandt  effect  of  shadow,  or 
fear.  Never  did  the  armour  of  a  knight  strike 
more  glittering  rays  into  the  dark,  or  a  red  thun- 
derbolt tear  up  the  ground  with  a  fiercer  plunge, 
than  in  his  verse.  But  its  nature  is  softer  and 
more  sunny.  Its  home  is  on  the  lips  of  love, 
when  May  throws  flowers  from  her  lap;  or 
with  the  dreaming  enchantress,  as  she  slum- 
bers, and 

"on  either  hand  upswells 
The  gold-fringed  pillow  lightly  prest." 

Then  all  the  hidden  melody  of  its  soul  comes  forth. 
Listen  to  the  description  of  the  abode  of  Sleep : 

"  And  more  to  lull  him  in  his  slumbers  soft, 
A  trickling  stream  from  high  rocks  tumbling  downe, 
And  ever-drizzling  rain  upon  the  loft, 
Mixed  with  a  murmuring  wind  much  like  the  sowne 
Of  swarming  bees,  did  cast  him  in  a  swowne: 
No  other  noise,  nor  people's  troublous  cries 
As  still  are  wont  t'  annoy  the  walled  towne, 
Might  there  be  heard:  but  careless  Quiet  lies, 
Wrapt  in  eternal  silence,  far  from  enemies." 

A  writer,  who  has  thrown  many  pleasant  lights 
upon  poetry,  reminds  us  that  in  reading  this 
stanza  we  ought  to  humour  it  with  a  correspond- 


poetry's  Sbapes  ano  Beauties     113 

ing  tone  of  voice,  lowering  or  deepening  it,  "as 
though  we  were  going  to  bed  ourselves,  or  thinking 
of  the  rainy  night  that  had  lulled  us."  He  sug- 
gests that  attention  to  the  accent  and  pause  in  the 
last  line  will  make  us  feel  the  depth  and  distance 
of  the  scene.  This  sense  of  remote  loneliness 
forms  a  delightful  peculiarity  of  Spenser  at  all 
seasons.  A  thousand  miles  of  dark  trees  seem  to 
rustle  between  the  world  and  the  poet.  Mr.  Cole- 
ridge points  out  the  imaginative  absence  of  space 
and  time  in  the  Faery  Queen.  The  haunted 
region  has  no  boundary,  and  the  reader  goes  with 
the  poet,  as  the  waking  beauty  followed  the  con- 
quering prince 

"  Across  the  hills  and  far  away 
Beyond  their  utmost  purple  rim, 
And  deep  into  the  dying  day." 

His  eyes  are  in  a  trance,  delicious  as  that  which 
held  the  maid,  the  page,  and  the  peacock,  when 
a  sudden  breeze  swept  through  the  garden,  and  all 
the  clocks  of  that  marvellous  house  struck  to- 
gether. He  is  in  dreamland,  without  the  wish  or 
the  power  to  ask,  or  to  learn,  how  he  came,  or 
when  he  is  to  depart.  If  a  faint  murmur  from 
the  dim  world  of  life  break  on  the  calm,  some 


1 14         pleasures  of  ^literature 

sweet  symphony  of  the  silver-sounding  instru- 
ments soon  renews  the  spell : 

"  A  most  melodious  sound 
Of  all  that  might  delight  a  dainty  ear, 
Such  as,  at  once,  might  not  on  living  ground, 
Save  in  this  paradise,  be  heard  elsewhere." 

The  picturesque  of  versification  shares  the  in- 
conveniences of  the  picturesque  in  building;  dark 
windows  and  winding  galleries  perplex  the  foot- 
step; obscure  similes  and  intricate  epithets  entan- 
gle the  attention.  The  defects  of  the  Spenserian 
stanza  are  classed  under  three  heads — (i)  dilation 
of  circumstances,  however  insignificant ;  (2)  repe- 
tition of  words ;  (3)  the  introduction  of  puerile  or 
unseemly  thoughts  to  complete  the  rhyme.  For 
the  most  part  the  skill  of  the  poet  overcomes  the 
difficulties.  His  nimble  hand  ranges  over  the 
keys  and  brings  the  harshest  notes  into  concord. 
Occasionally,  however,  lines  are  rebellious.  A 
stanza  turns  upon  him,  but  he  encounters  it  with 
a  resolution  which  reminded  an  ingenious  critic 
of  Hercules  breaking  the  back  of  the  Nemean  lion. 
He  dislocates  the  tender  nerves  of  a  metaphor 
with  a  merciless  grasp;  alters,  lengthens,  or  cuts 
away  words  and  letters.  Language  is  his  king- 
dom, and  he  rules  it  like  a  despot. 


poetry'  8  Sbapes  ant)  JSeauties     1 1 5 

After  every  abatement,  the  stanza  itself  re- 
mains unequalled  for  breadth,  richness,  and  sound. 
It  is  marked,  moreover,  by  a  romantic  wildness, 
which  harmonises  with  the  visionary  temper  of 
the  poem.  The  lingering,  dying  fall  of  the  closing 
Alexandrine  suits  well  the  antique  style,  and  the 
serious  gloom  of  the  verse.  As  the  music  rolls 
down  the  shadowy  canto,  which  the  cloud  of  alle- 
gory and  the  beams  of  fancy  fill  with  a  balmy  twi- 
light, we  recall  the  anthem  in  a  gorgeous  chapel, 
when  it  sweeps  along  the  branching  roof,  and 
trembles  round  the  embroidered  pinnacles,  and 
sighs  among  the  glimmering  stone-work  and  the 
fading  canopies,  until  every  pillar  and  leaf  are 

"  Kissed 
By  sound,  or  ghost  of  sound,  in  mazy  strife." 

It  would  be  like  reckoning  the  notes  of  the  wood 
in  spring,  to  dwell  upon  the  pleasures  afforded  to 
the  ear  by  that  linked  sweetness,  which  gives  the 
title  of  "lyrical"  to  the  dancing  numbers  of  Cow- 
ley,  and  the  buoyant  masques  of  Milton  and  Jon- 
son  ;  while  the  laboured  efforts  of  their  genius  are 
honoured  and  surveyed,  the  gayer  language  of 
fancy  is  ever  on  the  tongue.  Paradise  Lost  is  laid 
up  in  cedar;  but  L' Allegro  is  a  household  word. 

It  was  a  saying  of  Shenstone,  and    experience 


n6         pleasures  of  Xiterature 

confirms  it,  that  the  lines  of  poetry,  the  periods 
of  prose,  and  even  the  texts  of  Scripture  most 
frequently  recollected  and  quoted,  are  those  which 
are  felt  to  be  pre-eminently  musical.  The  sim- 
plest rhythm  is  softest,  and  the  most  familiar  is 
the  dearest.  New  forms  disturb  the  ear  by  disap- 
pointing it.  Perhaps  the  metrical  innovations  of 
Horace  may  help  to  explain  the  neglect  which  the 
discoveries  of  Pompeii  suggest.  Collins  has  not 
rendered  the  unrhymed  ode  popular.  Southey 
pays  in  reputation  for  the  difficulty  of  his  tunes. 
Whatever  changes  be  rung  upon  bells,  they  ought 
to  be  chimes.  The  compositions,  to  which  we 
return  with  affectionate  frequency,  owe  their  in- 
terest to  the  cadence  scarcely  less  than  to  the 
imagery. 


XVI 

SATIRE  EXCLUDED  FROM  POETRY 

THE  satirist  is  only  related  to  the  poet  when 
he  illuminates  life  with  fancy;  ennobles 
invective  into  allegory;  puts  the  crown  upon  a 
martyr  of  learning,  or  salts  a  moral  malefactor  in 
fire.  As  the  mere  outburst  of  passion,  disappoint- 
ment, or  rivalry,  satire  is  banished  from  the 
family  of  song.  Literature  loves  the  goodwill 
and  peace  she  teaches.  Quarrels  in  verse,  or 
prose,  never  gain  her  protection.  The  abuse  of 
Churchill  melts  with  the  winter  snow.  Even 
the  mightiest  word-combatants  draw  few  eyes 
to  the  story  of  their  struggles;  and  the  fierce 
controversy  of  Milton  has  left  no  deeper  traces 
behind  it,  than  the  feet  of  a  Greek  wrestler  upon 
the  dust  of  the  arena. 

Viewed  in  its  happiest  form,  as  a  work  of  art, 

satire  has  one  defect  which  seems  to  be  incurable 

— its  uniformity  of  censure.     Bitterness  scarcely 

admits  those  fine  transitions,  which  make  the  har- 

117 


us         pleasures  of  ^literature 

mony  of  a  composition.  Aquafortis  bites  a  plate  all 
over  alike.  The  satirist  is  met  by  the  difficulty 
of  the  etcher.  But  he  wants  his  opportunities  of 
conquering  it.  The  graver  may  lend  emphasis  to 
needle.  The  angry  pen  has  no  ally.  The  balance 
of  effect  can  only  be  given  by  a  different  hand.  A 
satire  should  be  interpolated  by  a  philosopher, 
and  the  gnomic  wisdom  of  Barrow  be  stamped 
upon  Pope. 

If  we  regard  satire  as  a  picture  of  living  man- 
ners, it  has  a  special  and  independent  interest. 
Hall's  characters  are  portraits  of  the  age ;  and  in 
this  light,  even  the  ruffianism  of  Oldham  possesses 
a  certain  value. 


XVII 


DRYDEN  defined  a  play  to  be  a  just  and  lively 
image  of  human  nature,  representing  its 
passions,  humours,  and  the  changes  of  fortune  to 
which  it  is  subject,  for  the  delight  and  instruction 
of  mankind.  Hurd  expands  the  view.  Man  is 
so  constructed,  that  whatever  his  condition  be— 
whether  pleasurable  or  painful — the  imagination 
continually  presents  numberless  varieties  of  pic- 
tures conformable  to  his  situation.  These  images 
are  shaped  and  tinged  by  the  circumstances  of 
birth,  feeling,  and  employment.  The  exhibition 
of  them  is  the  poetry,  and  a  just  representation 
is  the  art  of  dramatic  writing.  Supposing  this 
outline  to  be  earnestly  filled  up,  the  stage  would 
become  a  school  of  virtue,  and  tragedy,  in  the 
words  of  Percy,  be  a  supplement  to  the  pulpit. 

Such,  according  to  his  light,  was  the  character 
of  the  Greek  dramatist.     He  instructed  and  en- 
119 


i2o         pleasures  of  ^literature 

tertained.  His  page  was  solemnised  by  wisdom. 
Hence  Milton  includes  it  among  the  evening 
amusements  of  his  Thoughtful  Man : 

"  Sometime  let  gorgeous  Tragedy 
In  sceptred  pall  come  sweeping  by, 
Presenting  Thebes  or  Pelops'  line, 
Or  the  tale  of  Troy  divine; 
Or  what— though  rare — of  later  age 
Ennobled  hath  the  buskin'd  stage." 

The  choice  of  subject,  not  more  than  its  treat- 
ment, gave  an  educational  tone  to  old  tragedy. 
The  writer  selected  the  grandest  features  of  na- 
tional story.  It  is  always  found  that  a  specta- 
tor is  affected  by  the  rank  and  remoteness  of  the 
sufferer.  Belisarius  asking  an  obolus  is  more 
touching  than  a  blind  sailor  who  lost  his  sight 
before  the  mast.  Hurd  puts  this  feeling  with 
force:  "The  fall  of  a  cottage  by  the  accidents  of 
time  and  weather  is  almost  unheeded,  whilst  the 
ruins  of  a  tower,  which  the  neighbourhood  hath 
gazed  at  for  ages  with  admiration,  strike  all  ob- 
servers with  concern."  And  our  own  Shakespeare 
never  affects  us  so  mightily  as  in  his  portraits 
from  history: 

"  When  'mid  his  bold  design, 
Before  the  Scot,  afflicted  and  aghast, 


Brama  121 


The  shadowy  kings  of  Banquo's  fated  line 
Through  the  dark  cave  in  gleamy  pageant  passed." 

The  drama  is  the  book  of  the  people.  In  all 
countries  the  circumstances  of  a  life,  however 
rudely  displayed,  possess  an  incomparable  attrac- 
tion. The  story-teller  is  the  play-wright  of  Con- 
stantinople. The  adventures  of  an  ancient  Ja- 
vanese prince  will  hold  a  native  assembly  from 
evening  until  daylight.  Yet  the  properties  con- 
sist only  of  a  transparent  screen,  with  a  large 
lamp  behind  it,  and  a  hundred  painted  puppets, 
twelve  inches  high,  cut  out  of  buffalo-hide.  The 
poetry  is  a  monotonous  recitative,  and  the  action 
is  confined  to  throwing  the  shadow  of  each  suc- 
cessive figure  upon  the  curtain. 

A  dramatic  poet  wields  the  sceptre  of  the 
masses,  and  reaches  the  national  heart  through 
all  its  organs  of  sensation.  Eye  and  ear  are  his 
ministers.  A  brave  exploit  is  riveted  in  the  au- 
dience. A  fine  saying  grows  into  an  argument. 
When  a  moral  purpose  animates  the  author, 
he  works  it  through  the  play.  The  com- 
monest burlesque  submits  to  the  oversight  of 
conscience. 

The  drama  embraces  and  applies  all  the  beau- 
ties and  decorations  of  poetry.  The  sister  arts 


122         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

attend  and  adorn  it.  Spenser's  lovely  portrait- 
ure of  Venus  finding  Diana  in  the  wood, 

"  While  all  her  nymphs  did,  like  a  garland,  her  enclose," 

is  vividly  descriptive  of  the  honours  and  services 
which  are  rendered  to  the  Muse  of  Tragedy. 
Painting,  architecture,  and  music  are  her  hand- 
maids. The  costliest  lights  of  a  people's  intellect 
burn  at  her  show.  All  ages  welcome  her.  An 
eloquent  admirer  has  indicated  this  universal  in- 
fluence. He  points  to  the  king,  the  statesman, 
and  the  soldier  gathered  before  her  to  watch  the 
anatomy  of  the  passions;  to  the  artist,  combining 
the  splendour  of  costume  and  variety  of  charac- 
ters into  gorgeous  processions;  to  the  old,  living 
over  early  days  in  recollection ;  and  to  the  young, 
waiting  with  eager  eyes  and  beating  hearts  for  the 
first  rustle  of  the  curtain,  which  is  to  discover, 
after  each  rising  fold,  a  new  world  of  scenery, 
magnificence,  and  life. 

The  Preacher  tells  us  that  laughter  is  mad,  and 
the  Proverb  of  the  Wise  Man  adds  a  warning  that 
the  end  of  mirth  is  heaviness.  There  was  a  deep 
moral  in  the  Athenian  law  which  interdicted  a 
judge  of  the  Areopagus  from  writing  a  comedy. 
The  habit  of  looking  at  things  on  the  ludicrous 
side  is  always  hurtful.  The  pleasure  is  faint  and 


TTbe  JDrama  123 

vanishing,  and  leaves  behind  it  an  apprehension 
of  disgrace.  Raffaelle  and  Hogarth,  Comus  and 
the  Tale  of  a  Tub,  are  separated  by  a  broad  gulf. 
"  It  is  not  good  to  live  in  jest,  since  we  must  die  in 
earnest." 

No  other  element  of  literature  is  so  susceptible 
and  volatile  as  wit.  It  comes  in  and  goes  out 
with  the  moon ;  when  most  flourishing,  it  has  its 
boundaries,  from  which,  as  Swift  said,  it  may  not 
wander,  upon  peril  of  being  lost.  This  geograph- 
ical chain  has  bound,  with  heavier  or  lighter  links, 
the  pleasantry  of  Lucian,  the  buffoonery  of  Rabe- 
lais, the  pictures  of  Dry  den,  and  the  caricatures 
of  Butler.  The  urbane  gaiety  of  Horace  alone 
preserves  its  freedom,  and  travels  over  the  world. 

Humour,  which  is  the  pensiveness  of  wit,  en- 
joys a  longer  and  a  wider  life.  After  one  brilliant 
explosion,  the  repartee  is  worthless.  The  shrunken 
firework  offends  the  eye;  but  the  quiet  suggestive- 
ness  of  Mr.  Shandy  is  interesting  as  ever;  and  the 
details  of  the  great  army  in  Flanders  will  last  as 
long  as  the  passage  of  Hannibal.  Collins  seems 
to  indicate  the  poetical  expression  of  humour,  as 
distinguished  from  broader  and  coarser  mirth: 

"  But  who  is  he  whom  now  she  views, 
In  robe  of  wild  contending  hues  ? 


i24         pleasures  of  ^literature 

Thou  by  the  Passions  nursed,  I  greet 

The  comic  sock  that  binds  thy  feet  ! 

O  Humour,  thou  whose  name  is  known 

To  Britain's  favoured  isle  alone  ; 

Me,  too,  amidst  thy  band  admit  ; 

There  where  the  young-eyed  healthful  Wit, 

(Whose  jewels  in  his  crisped  hair 

Are  placed  each  other's  beams  to  share  ; 

Whom  no  delights  from  thee  divide) 

In  laughter  loosed,  attends  thy  side." 

The  pleasure  of  Shakespeare's  comedies  rises  from 
their  humour.  His  smile  is  serious.  Johnson 
commended  tragi-comedy,  as  giving  a  true  reflec- 
tion of  those  grave  and  trifling  incidents  which 
compose  the  scenes  of  experience.  Joy  and  grief 
are  never  far  apart.  In  the  same  street  the  shut- 
ters of  one  house  are  closed,  while  the  curtains  of 
the  next  are  brushed  by  shadows  of  the  dance.  A 
wedding-party  returns  from  church,  and  a  funeral 
winds  to  its  door.  The  smiles  and  the  sadness  of 
life  are  the  tragi-comedy  of  Shakespeare.  Glad- 
ness and  sighs  brighten  and  cloud  the  mirror  he 
beholds.  In  this  respect  he  differs  from  his  con- 
temporary, Ben  Jonson,  in  whom  is  enjoyed, 
with  special  richness,  the  comedy  of  erudition. 
The  Akhemist,  the  Silent  Woman,  and  Every  Man 
in  his  Humour,  are  masterpieces  of  a  learned 


Ube  H>rama  125 

pencil.  Fletcher  may  be  relished  in  his  Elder 
Brother,  and  Massinger  in  his  incomparable  Sir 
Giles  Overreach. 

If  the  reader  descends  from  the  reigns  of 
Elizabeth  and  James  into  the  time  of  the  second 
Charles,  his  gratifications  of  mirth  are  purchased 
by  a  wounded  conscience.  Comedy  has  no  whole 
place  in  its  body.  Greek  farce  was  riotous  and 
insolent;  yet  fancy — like  a  summer  breeze  from 
a  green  farm — sometimes  refreshes  the  hot  stage. 
Aristophanes  paints  town-life  with  a  suburb  of 
gardens.  But  a  blade  of  grass  never  grew  in  the 
theatre  of  Farquhar  and  his  kindred.  Wide  was 
their  scholarship  in  wit : 

"  They  sauntered  Europe  round, 
And  gathered  every  vice  on  Christian  ground." 

Casting  nets  over  the  old  world  and  the  new,  no 
venomous  epigram,  nor  sparkling  idiom  of  sin, 
escaped  the  throw.  Every  line  glitters  and  stings. 
Upon  the  whole,  the  pleasures  of  the  drama — 
tragic  and  comic — are  larger  than  its  advantages. 
In  the  bold  figure  of  Cowley,  it  must  be  washed  in 
the  Jordan  to  recover  its  health.  A  deep  purpose 
of  religion  alone  can  make  it  useful  to  the  people. 
Taste  may  purify  it,  but  the  taint  remains.  It 
is  only  the  water  of  Damascus  to  the  leper. 


126        pleasures  of  literature 

Of  English  poets  belonging  to  our  golden  age, 
Shakespeare  has  the  fewest  scales.  His  vigour  of 
constitution  threw  off  the  ranker  disease.  With 
Fletcher's  vice  and  Dekker's  coarseness,  he  would 
have  been  the  saddest  spectacle  the  world  has 
beheld  of  genius  retaining  its  power,  and  bereft 
of  its  light. 


XVIII 

I 
THE  CONSOLATIONS  OF  POETRY 

NO  modern  writer  of  verses  may  reckon  on  the 
good  fortune  of  Metastasio,  who  gained  a 
suit  at  Naples  by  some  extempore  stanzas.  A 
friend  invited  the  judge  to  her  house,  the  poet 
pleaded  in  rhyme,  and  in  two  or  three  days  the 
court  decided  in  his  favour.  Future  invaders  of 
India  will  scarcely  imitate  Alexander,  walking — 
in  the  lively  extravagance  of  Davenant — after 
the  drum  from  Macedon,  with  Homer  in  his 
pocket;  and  Utopia  must  be  erected  among  the 
Afghans,  before  a  captive  regains  his  freedom  by 
a  few  lines  of  an  English  Euripides. 

Poetry  is  its  own  reward.  A  consoler  in  life,  it 
soothes  griefs;  blesses  poverty;  rocks  asleep  sick- 
ness; multiplies  and  refines  pleasures;  endears 
loneliness ;  embellishes  the  common,  and  irradiates 
the  lovely.  It  is  the  natural  religion  of  literature. 
Lord  Bacon  explained  the  old  superstition  that  a 
rainbow  draws  perfume  from  the  ground  it  hangs 
127 


i28        pleasures  ot  Xiterature 

over,  by  supposing  it  to  absorb  the  bloom  of  flow- 
ers. The  dream  of  science  is  a  reality  of  song. 
That  bow,  which  fancy  sets  in  the  clouds  of  life, 
drinks  fragrance  from  all  its  many-coloured  joys 
and  sorrows.  The  hues  which  it  gathers,  it 
restores  with  milder  beauty;  and  the  barrenest 
wayside  of  want  and  mourning  looks  green  and 
cheerful  under  its  brooding  line  of  shadow. 

Poetical  taste  is  the  only  magician  whose  scep- 
tre is  not  broken.  The  rudest  hand  cannot  dis- 
solve the  fabric  of  beauty  in  which  it  dwells. 
Genii,  unknown  to  Arabian  fable,  wait  at  the  por- 
tal. Whatever  is  most  precious  from  the  loom, 
or  the  mine  of  fancy,  is  poured  at  its  feet.  Love, 
purified  by  contemplation,  visits  and  cheers  it. 
Unseen  musicians  are  heard  in  the  dark.  It  is 
Psyche  in  the  palace  of  Cupid. 

True  poetry,  sincerely  cherished,  is  a  friend  for 
life.  It  accompanies  us  to  all  lands  and  enjoys 
health  in  every  climate.  Milton  disembarks  with 
the  missionary  in  the  Bay  of  Islands.  The  Afri- 
can waggon  is  a  litter  for  Horace.  The  Australian 
shepherd  meets  again,  in  his  lone  hut,  and  by  the 
dim  flame  of  his  tallow  lamp,  the  old  goatherd  of 
Theocritus,  whom  he  knew  in  the  courts  of  Trinity 
or  Christ  Church.  He  who  loves  imagination  and 


Consolations  of  poetry          129 

pathos  wears  a  ring  upon  his  finger,  more  precious 
than  that  which  belonged  to  Pyrrhus.  The  stone 
answers  the  wish.  Some  messenger 

"  Of  many  a  coloured  plume  sprinkled  with  gold  " 

comes  to  his  call.  The  scene  is  changed.  The 
street  of  a  vast  city  slopes  into  a  glade  of  Arcadia; 
an  Italian  moon  hangs  glorious  between  the  moun- 
tain pines;  the  shops  brighten  into  gay  pavilions, 
and  the  trumpet  of  the  tournament  rings  out  its 
challenge;  a  magnificent  kingdom  of  the  East 
flashes  through  the  smoke  with  all  its  pinnacles; 
or  a  Tyrian  sail  catches  the  evening  light,  and 
swells  softly  in  the  still  air  of  time. 

What  peace  and  contentment  such  visions  shed 
over  the  fever  of  our  cares!  And  he  who  seeks, 
finds  them: 

"  In  spite  of  all, 

Some  shape  of  beauty  moves  away  the  pall 
From  our  dark  spirits." 

The  history  of  a  great  statesman  exemplifies 
the  poetical  enchantment.  Pitt  sometimes  es- 
caped from  the  roar  of  contending  parties  at  home 
and  abroad,  into  the  solemn  retirements  of  a 
favourite  author.  He  left  the  political  elements 
to  fight  outside,  and  barred  the  gates  of  imagina- 
tion upon  the  storm.  One  visitor  found  him  read- 


i jo         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

ing  Milton  aloud,  with  strong  emphasis,  and  so 
deeply  engaged  in  Paradise,  as  to  have  forgotten 
the  presence  of  any  people  in  the  world  except 
Adam  and  Eve.  Compare  with  this  happy  por- 
trait the  confession  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  to  Mr. 
Fox,  in  the  library  at  Houghton :  "  I  wish  I  took 
as  much  delight  in  reading  as  you  do:  it  would  be 
the  means  of  alleviating  many  tedious  hours  in  my 
present  retirement;  but,  to  my  misfortune,  I  de- 
rive no  pleasure  from  such  pursuits." 

Of  course  the  finest  taste  has  the  richest  enjoy- 
ment, and  watches  in  all  its  dewy  lustre, 

"  The  landscape  gliding  swift 
Athwart  Imagination's  vivid  eye." 

But  in  whatever  degree  the  poetical  feeling  may 
have  been  cultivated,  the  pleasure  will  be  insured. 
The  Muse's  stone  has  a  homely  magic.  The  hum- 
blest appeal  is  never  rejected.  The  farmer  who 
has  treasured  a  few  lines  of  rural  description,  may 
bind  the  sheaves  upon  his  bed  of  sickness;  the 
woodbine  will  trail  its  clusters  down  the  wall;  and 
the  broken  light  through  the  curtains  be  changed 
into  the  tremulous  glimmer  of  elms  on  the  village 
green.  Even  the  old  squire,  no  longer  startling 
the  woods  with  his  horn,  may  enjoy  a  quiet  chase 
in  metre,  clear  a  hedge  upon  a  swift  hexameter, 


Consolations  of  poetry          131 

and  in  pursuit  of  the  "brush,"  which  was  the 
pride  and  joy  of  his  manhood, 

"  Still  scour  the  county  in  his  elbow-chair." 

How,  in  all  times,  have  the  Muse's  enchant- 
ments been  worked!  We  think  of  Milton,  after 
the  sight  of  his  eyes  had  gone  from  him ;  when  the 
rays  of  early  studies  shone  over  his  path ;  solemn 
notes  of  tragic,  or  livelier  lyric  verse,  stole  into  his 
ear;  and  nightingales  sang  as  sweetly  in  Cripple- 
gate,  as  when  the  April  leaf  trembled  in  his 
father's  garden. 

We  remember  Camoens  in  all  his  trials;  gazing 
on  land  and  water  from  that  rocky  chair  built  by 
Nature  for  him — and  still  called  by  his  name — 
upon  an  isthmus  of  the  China  seas;  shipwrecked, 
with  his  Lusiad  held  above  the  waves,  and  drifting 
upon  a  plank  to  shore;  in  Lisbon,  waiting  in  soli- 
tude and  darkness  the  return  of  a  black  servant, 
who  helped  to  feed  his  hunger  with  the  alms  he 
begged ;  or  closing  his  eyes — a  sick  mendicant  and 
outcast — in  a  public  hospital. 

We  follow  the  homeless  Dante,  with  a  sentence 
of  flames  hanging  over  his  head ;  yet  bearing,  his 
only  treasure,  the  seven  cantos  of  his  poem,  which 
he  had  written  before  his  exile;  and  ever  adding 


i32         pleasures  of  literature 

a  stone  to  the  precious  structure,  as  the  storm 
cleared  away  into  short  intervals  of  sunshine. 

We  weep  with  Tasso,  in  the  dismal  cell  of  St. 
Anne,  and  sometimes  exult  in  his  bright  hours  of 
returning  calm,  when  the  Eastern  tale  rose  in 
its  pomp,  to  be  peopled  with  the  grandeur  and 
tumult  of  the  Crusade. 

What  upheld  the  buffeted  pilgrims  of  fame  in 
their  struggle  and  journey?  Doubtless  they  felt, 
in  all  its  rage,  that  passion  for  renown  which  the 
noblest  of  the  four  called 

"  The  spur  which  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise, 
To  scorn  delight,  and  live  laborious  days." 

But  they  had  other  and  nearer  joys.  An  ani- 
mating, mastering  sense  of  music  lived  in  their 
hearts,  finding  utterance  in  tones  more  lulling 
than  the  south-west  wind  of  the  Arcadia,  which, 
in  the  ear  of  Sidney,  crept  "over  flowery  fields  and 
shadowed  waters  in  the  heat  of  summer."  The 
fragrant  shades  of  a  visionary  world  enclosed 
their  melody,  as  thick  leaves  bury  the  singing 
birds  when  lightnings  are  abroad.  They  were 
conscious  of  the  Muse's  presence  in  sudden 
streams  of  bloom  upon  the  air.  Even  the  strokes 
of  hatred  and  persecution  lost  their  power,  or 
dropped  with  a  blunted  edge.  For  Homer's  god- 


Consolations  of  poetry          133 

dess,  warding  off  the  dart  from  her  favourite,  is 
ever  an  allegory  of  the  poet  on  the  battle-field  of 
the  world,  where  beauty — his  mind's  mother — 
throws  forward  her  bright  garment,  and  inter- 
cepts the  arrow  from  the  enemy's  bow. 

And  thus  it  happens  that  the  poet,  rich  in  pov- 
erty, carries  with  him  grapes  to  quench  his  thirst, 
and  greenest  boughs  to  shelter  his  repose.  The 
stormy  day  is  better  for  him  than  the  calm.  We 
are  told  by  naturalists  that  birds  of  paradise  fly 
best  against  the  wind;  it  drifts  behind  them  the 
gorgeous  train  of  feathers,  that  only  entangles 
their  flight  with  the  gale.  Pure  imagination,  of 
which  the  loveliest  of  winged  creatures  is  the  fit- 
ting emblem,  seems  always  to  gain  in  vigour  and 
grace  by  the  tempests  it  encounters,  and  in  con- 
trary winds  to  show  the  brightest  plumage. 

It  is  a  happy  feature  of  English  teaching  that 
the  child  is  fed  so  largely  with  poetical  fruit.  A 
love  of  the  good  and  the  beautiful  is  thus  entwined 
with  the  growing  mind,  and  becomes  a  part  of  it. 
Sometimes  the  muscular  ivy  does  not  clasp  the 
oak  with  a  stronger  embrace.  A  remembered 
verse  is  pleasing  for  its  own  sake,  and  for  the  asso- 
ciations which  it  revives.  When  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds, with  other  English  visitors  to  the  Opera 


I34         pleasures  ot  literature 

in  Venice,  heard  a  ballad,  played  in  every  street 
of  London  before  they  left  it,  the  tears  rushed  to 
their  eyes,  and  home,  with  all  the  endearments 
and  friends,  rose  before  them. 

"  Such  is  the  secret  union,  when  we  feel 
A  song — a  flower — a  name — at  once  restore 
The  attention." 

Most  affectingly  has  a  late  historian  expressed  the 
feeling  of  unnumbered  hearts;  "They  who  have 
known  what  it  is  when  afar  from  books,  in  soli- 
tude, or  in  travelling,  or  in  intervals  of  worldly 
care,  to  feed  on  poetical  recollections,  to  recall  the 
sentiments  and  images  which  retain  by  association 
the  charm  that  early  years  once  gave  them — they 
will  feel  the  inestimable  value  of  committing  to 
the  memory,  in  the  prime  of  its  power,  what  it  will 
easily  receive  and  indelibly  retain." 

Nor,  if  the  gathering  of  flowers  sometimes 
awake  an  ambition  to  grow  them — if  the  reader, 
smitten  with  love  of  an  ode,  set  himself  to  pro- 
duce one — is  the  injury  to  his  own  mind,  or  the 
inconvenience  to  his  friends,  likely  to  be  of  par- 
ticular moment.  He  may  mistake  his  calling  and 
his  powers— may  believe  himself  born  to  write, 
instead  of  to  judge;  but  next  to  excellence  is  the 
desire  of  it.  A  poem  that  bloomed  through  the 


Consolations  of  poetrg          135 

little  day  of  domestic  reputation,  often  blends 
itself  healthfully  with  the  atmosphere  of  home ;  as 
the  rose,  in  the  thought  of  Azais,  after  its  leaves 
are  strewed  on  the  ground,  mingles  its  odours 
with  the  air,  and  continues  a  purifying  work  when 
its  colour  has  departed. 

Poetry  is  born  to  be  the  companion  of  youth. 
Morning  hours  may  be  fleeting  as  they  are  fair. 
Sometimes  the  flower  of  the  grass  is  not  withered 
sooner.  Temptations  and  cares  overleap  the  gar- 
den. A  blazing  sword  appears  at  the  gate.  The 
hard  paths  of  toil  are  to  be  trodden,  and  the  soil  of 
life  is  to  be  tilled.  But  why  should  manhood  and 
poetry  no  longer  take  sweet  counsel  together,  and 
walk  through  the  world  as  friends  ?  Age,  with  its 
bereavements  and  compensations,  will  endear 
them  more  and  more  to  each  other.  Do  not  take 
away  a  friend,  who  dries  the  tear,  and  a  voice  th?t 
sings  in  the  night.  Whatever  ills  befall  them  by 
the  way,  let  youth  and  fancy  go  out  of  Paradise 
hand-in-hand. 


XIX 

FICTION:  THE  ROMANCE  AND  THE 
NOVEL 

A  POEM,  unfettered  by  metre,  takes  the  name 
of  romance.  The  genealogy  of  fiction  fur- 
nishes another  proof  of  the  diffusion  of  mental 
pleasures.  The  same  stories  continually  appear 
with  an  altered  complexion.  The  cat  of  Whit- 
tington  made  the  fortune  of  a  merchant  of  Genoa, 
as  well  as  of  a  Lord  Mayor  of  London.  Llew- 
elyn's greyhound  has  a  second  grave  very  distant 
from  Bethgelert.  It  sleeps  and  points  a  moral  in 
Persia.  Dear  Red  Riding  Hood  puts  off  her  cloak 
by  a  Danish  fireside.  The  dart  of  Abaris,  which 
carried  the  philosopher  whithersoever  he  desired  it, 
gratifies  later  enthusiasts  in  travel,  as  the  Cap  of 
Fortunatus  and  the  space-compelling  boots  of  the 
nursery  Hero.  The  helmet  of  Pluto,  which  pro- 
tected Perseus  in  his  desperate  combat  with  Me- 
dusa, has  frequently  shielded  humbler  heads  as 
the  Fog-cap  of  the  North;  while  the  ring  of  Gyges 
136 


IRomance  anfc  IRovel  137 

transferred  its  advantages  of  secrecy  to  the  mask 
of  Arthur. 

For  practical  purposes,  prose  fiction  may  be 
divided  into  (i)  the  romance,  which  is  the  legend 
of  heroic,  and  (2)  the  novel,  which  is  the  news  of 
common  life.  The  romance  flourishes  in  the 
ignorance,  the  novel  in  the  refinement  of  a  nation. 
The  fourteenth  century  asks  for  exploits  of  Charle- 
magne; the  nineteenth,  how  the  Duke  of  Fair- 
light  dines.  The  same  feeling  may  still  be  traced 
in  the  contrasts  of  barbarism  and  civilisation. 
The  wild  Arab  by  his  watch-fire,  listens  out  the 
night  to  the  music  of  spears  in  the  fierce  foray; 
the  Japanese  gentleman,  mooring  his  splendid 
boat  under  a  tree,  hears  his  fashionable  tale  from 
the  story-teller,  who  collects  the  gossip  of  his 
neighbourhood. 

With  ourselves,  fiction  is  only  one  of  the  count- 
less pleasures  by  which  curiosity  is  amused.  But 
to  remoter  students  it  presented  the  collected 
charms  of  literature.  We  can  hardly  realise  the 
fascinations  of  romance  in  ages  when  ability  to 
read  a  book  was  a  rarer  accomplishment  than  the 
writing  of  it  would  be  at  present.  A  Gothic  story, 
before  the  Press  vulgarised  wonders,  was  a  treas- 
ure to  be  catalogued  with  the  statutes  of  the 


138         pleasures  ot  ^Literature 

realm.  The  will  of  a  Scottish  baronet,  in  1390, 
includes  both  in  the  same  bequest.  Such  a  book 
was  the  pride  of  the  eyes : 

"  Princes  and  kings  received  the  wondrous  gift, 
And  ladies  read  the  work  they  could  not  lift." 

The  scribe,  the  artist,  and  the  binder  lavished 
their  time  and  skill.  Six  years  were  not  unfre- 
quently  spent  upon  the  internal  decorations.  The 
margin  was  enriched  with  grotesque  portraits, 
magnificent  dresses,  flowers,  and  fruits.  Silver 
letters  shone  on  a  purple  ground.  Golden  roses 
studded  a  covering  of  crimson  velvet ;  and  clasps 
of  precious  metal,  richly  chased,  shut  up  the  ad- 
venturous knights  and  the  radiant  damsels  in 
their  gorgeous  homes.  Wonderful  were  the  do- 
ings within !  Crabbe  has  playfully  unfolded  some 
of  them  in  harmonious  verse : 

"  Hark  !  hollow  blasts  through  empty  courts  resound, 
And  shadowy  forms  with  staring  eyes  stalk  round  ; 
See  !  moats  and  bridges,  walls  and  castles  rise, 
Ghosts,  fairies,  demons,  dance  before  our  eyes  ; 
Lo  !  magic  verse  inscribed  on  golden  gate, 
And  bloody  hand  that  beckons  on  to  fate. 
'And  who  art  thou,  thou  little  page,  unfold  ? 
Say,  doth  thy  lord  my  Claribel  withhold  ? 
Go,  tell  him  straight — Sir  Knight,  thou  must  resign 
The  captive  Queen  :  for  Claribel  is  mine.' 


IRomance  ant)  IRovel  139 

Away  he  flies  ;  and  now  for  bloody  deeds, 
Black  suits  of  armour,  masks,  and  foaming  steeds ; 
The  Giant  falls  ;  his  recreant  throat  I  seize, 
And  from  his  corselet  take  the  massy  keys." 

The  knight  and  lady  of  high  degree  did  not 
keep  these  worthies  to  themselves.  Over  their 
ample  pages,  poetical  eyes  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  pored  with  untiring  satis- 
faction. Southey  discovered  in  the  Amadis  of 
Gaul  the  Zelmane  of  the  Arcadia,  the  Masque  of 
Cupid  of  the  Faery  Queen,  and  the  Florizel  of  the 
Winter  s  Tale. 

The  romance  of  chivalry  replaced  the  Heroic 
in  a  reduced  and  feeble  copy.  It  was  the  incredi- 
ble in  water-colours.  We  miss  the  knights  and 
the  enchanters  with  their  enormous  capacities. 
Things  that  never  could  be  done,  are,  indeed, 
accomplished  in  every  page;  but  the  actors  look 
diminutive  and  tame.  They  want  the  dauntless 
vivacity  of  their  predecessors.  The  epic  of  false- 
hood was  closed. 

Years  passed  by,  and  fiction  put  on  another 
shape,  and  received  the  name,  without  the  in- 
heritance, of  Minerva.  Mediaeval  exaggerations 
were  clothed  in  modern  dresses.  Giants,  living 
in  impregnable  castles,  gave  way  to  heroes  of  pre- 


i4o         pleasures  of  literature 

ternatural  stature  in  their  sentiments,  who  raved 
through  four  volumes— sometimes  five— for  dark 
ladies  of  impossible  beauty.  What  a  geography 
was  theirs!  Puck  found  himself  outrun.  The 
chronicler  of  the  sayings  and  doings  of  the  Black 
Penitents  put  a  girdle  round  the  world,  in  consid- 
erably less  than  forty  minutes.  Time  and  space 
were  mere  circumstances.  Kingdoms  fraternised. 
Constantinople  abutted  on  Moorfields;  and  Julius 
Caesar  conquered  Mexico  with  Cortes.  Proba- 
bility was  despised.  Everything  came  to  pass 
when  it  was  wanted;  and  the  healthiest  people 
died  the  moment  they  were  in  the  way. 

The  incidents  of  these  tales  resembled  drop- 
curtains  in  small  theatres.  The  effect  was  ter- 
rible. The  vicar's  daughter,  watching  a  fine 
sunset  from  the  churchyard,  was  ruthlessly  carried 
off  by  banditti,  who  stepped  out  of  a  Salvator  on 
purpose.  Perhaps  the  scene  was  laid  in  a  moun- 
tain country,  and  about  the  middle  of  the  first  vol- 
ume, a  sentimental  youth  was  entranced,  during  a 
moonlight  walk,  by  unearthly  strains  of  music 
proceeding  from  a  lady  in  white  muslin,  who  stood 
with  her  harp  upon  a  pinnacle  of  frozen  snow, 
where  the  wild  goat,  in  these  prosaic  days,  would 
not  find  a  footing.  These  extravagances  melted 


IRomance  an&  Iftovel  141 

before  the  creations  of  Scott,  and  a  fourth  class  of 
fiction  delighted  the  world.  The  Waverley  tales 
might  claim  a  discourse  for  themselves.  "When 
I  am  very  ill  indeed,  I  can  read  Scott's  novels,  and 
they  are  almost  the  only  books  I  can  then  read" — 
how  many  sad  and  weary  hearts  are  echoing  every 
day  the  gratitude  of  Coleridge.  I  would  not  say, 
with  Charlotte  Bronte:  "For  fiction,  read  Scott 
alone."  Is  not  Jane  Austen  here  with  home  truth 
and  scenery  to  delight  us  ?  But  what  a  Wizard 
he  is  with  the  unreal  trowel — to  use  his  own 
words ;  and  how  he  outwent  his  own  praise  of  De- 
foe, in  dramatising  a  legend,  and  presenting  it  be- 
fore the  reader  in  speech  and  action.  And,  then, 
remember  the  healthy  glow  in  the  blood,  of  which 
we  are  conscious  ,  while  reading  him;  the  breezy, 
open-air  sense  of  the  wide  moor,  or  the  sounding 
sea. 

I  am  not  competent  to  speak  of  later  styles  and 
performances,  and  will  not  venture  to  say  whether 
the  irony  of  Cowper  be  applicable  to  our  own  days : 

"  And  novels — witness  every  month's  Review — 
Belie  their  name,  and  offer  nothing  new." 

But  the  hastiest  observer  cannot  fail  to  mark 
that  in  gay,  as  in  graver  efforts,  our  century  is  the 
era  of  revised  editions.  Richardson,  Smollett, 


i42         pleasures  of  literature 

and  their  contemporaries,  come  out  in  clever 
abridgments,  adapted  to  the  changes  of  taste, 
and  under  various  titles.  Old  friends  revisit  us 
with  new  faces.  Amelia  has  watched  the  dying 
embers  for  a  dozen  husbands,  since  Fielding  left 
her;  and  Uncle  Toby's  mellow  tones  have  startled 
us  down  a  college  staircase,  and  through  the  rail- 
ing of  counting-houses  in  the  city.  Gentlemen 
and  heroines  from  whom  we  parted  many  years 
ago,  with  slight  respect  for  their  attainments  and 
morals,  have  now  taken  a  scientific,  or  a  serious 
turn.  Lovelace  is  absorbed  in  entomology;  and 
Lady  Bellaston  is  a  rubber  of  brasses. 

In  considering  the  objects  of  Prose  fiction,  I  am 
led  to  think  it  most  useful,  as  it  is  most  poetical. 
The  grandest  outlines  of  character  afford  the 
healthfullest  examples.  On  this  account,  heroic 
and  chivalrous  legends  have  peculiar  advantages. 
Their  colossal  virtues  are  links  between  the  human 
and  a  higher  organisation.  They  show  a  sort  of 
middle  life.  Imagination  presenting  to  the  mind 
ideal  forms  of  beauty  and  courage,  is  a  faint 
shadow  of  faith  by  which  the  unseen  things  of 
another  existence  are  brought  in  later  years  be- 
fore us.  An  ennobling  element  of  thought  is 
wanted;  and  a  reflective  observer  predicted  a 


IRomance  ant)  1Rox>el  143 

deficiency  of  generous,  brave,  and  devout  feelings 
in  the  manhood  of  a  person,  in  whose  youth  he 
discovered  a  severe  restriction  of  the  mind  to  bare 
truth  and  minute  accuracy,  with  dislike  of  the 
fanciful,  the  tender,  and  the  magnificent.  John- 
son seems  to  have  held  the  same  opinion.  Writ- 
ing to  Mrs.  Thrale  about  the  education  of  her 
daughter,  he  said :  "  She  will  go  back  to  her  arith- 
metic again, — a  science  suited  to  Sophy's  cast  of 
mind ;  for  you  told  me  in  the  last  winter  that  she 
loved  metaphysics  more  than  romances.  Her 
choice  is  certainly  laudable,  as  it  is  uncommon; 
but  /  would  have  her  like  what  is  good  in  both."  If 
life  be  a  curious  web,  which  each  man  and  woman 
is  obliged  to  weave,  why  should  not  a  thread  of 
gold  run  through  the  texture?  There  is  a  better 
quality  even  than  prudence.  We  meet  people 
every  day  who  think  themselves  wise  because  they 
are  selfish.  Cut  a  leaf  from  a  ledger,  and  you 
have  their  life. 

The  importance  of  the  romantic  element  does 
not  rest  upon  conjecture.  Pleasing  testimonies 
abound.  Hannah  More  traced  her  earliest  im- 
pressions of  virtue  to  works  of  fiction ;  and  Adam 
Clarke  gives  a  list  of  tales  that  won  his  boyish 
admiration.  Books  of  entertainment  led  him  to 


i44         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

believe  in  a  spiritual  world;  and  he  felt  sure  of 
having  been  a  coward,  but  for  romances.  He 
declared  that  he  had  learned  more  of  his  duty  to 
God,  his  neighbour,  and  himself,  from  Robinson 
Crusoe,  than  from  all  the  books — except  the  Bi- 
ble— that  were  known  to  his  youth.  These  grate- 
ful recollections  never  forsook  him,  and  the  story 
of  Defoe  was  put  into  the  hands  of  his  children  as 
soon  as  they  were  able  to  read  it.  Sir  Alexander 
Ball  informed  Coleridge  that  he  was  drawn  to  the 
navy,  in  childhood,  by  the  pictures  which  that 
Ancient  Manner  left  on  his  mind. 

It  would  be  an  idle  endeavour  to  answer  the 
objections  which  have  been  urged  against  fiction. 
But  on  one  of  the  perils  most  earnestly  depre- 
cated— the  disregard  of  harmony  between  the 
means  and  the  end — a  few  remarks  may  be  of- 
fered. Let  me  take  the  objector's  own  case,  and 
put  it  in  stronger  colours.  A  young  man  is  in 
love  with  a  lady  of  higher  station,  who  is  not  blind 
to  his  merits;  but  her  parents  talk  of  settlements, 
and  he  has  nothing  but  hope.  How  is  the  diffi- 
culty to  be  overcome?  In  the  easiest  way. 
Twenty  years  ago,  a  gentleman  came  to  London 
from  the  New  Forest,  rejected  and  desperate. 
All  his  affections  were  shattered.  With  one 


"Romance  ant)  IRovel  145 

wrench  he  cast  off  his  country  and  his  attachment 
together.  He  sails  to  India;  works  hard;  gets 
promoted;  and  comes  home  with  two  hundred 
thousand  pounds,  and  a  portfolio  of  tigers.  What 
has  he  to  do  with  the  story  ?  Everything.  This 
fortunate  adventurer  is  the  lover's  uncle,  although 
nobody  knew  of  the  relationship.  Well;  he  has 
landed  at  Portsmouth,  and  is  riding  leisurely  by 
a  dark  wood  to  look  at  a  house  which  is  to  let, 
with  a  small  portmanteau  strapped  on  his  horse. 
This  is  the  moment.  Three  footpads  spring  from 
the  trees;  robbery  and  murder  seem  inevitable, 
when  his  nephew — the  young  man  who  could  not 
get  married,  and  who  had  been  reading  Ham- 
mond's Elegies  on  a  stile — rushes  to  the  rescue. 
The  plunderers  disappear;  the  kinsmen  recognise 
each  other;  the  brave  defender  receives  on  the 
spot  a  cheque  for  ten  thousand  pounds,  and  de- 
parts by  the  night  coach  to  tell  the  news  to  Ce- 
cilia. Of  course,  every  difficulty  vanishes;  the 
marriage  is  solemnised,  and  the  last  chapter  ends 
in  a  peal. 

Now  suppose  this  adventure,  in  all  its  absurd- 
ity, to  be  really  written  and  read,  who  is  likely  to 
be  injured  by  it?  Is  it  worth  a  moralist's  trouble 
to  work  himself  into  a  frenzy,  and  to  say  that  his 


i46         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

"indignation  is  excited  at  the  immoral  tendency 
of  such  lessons  to  young  readers,  who  are  thus 
taught  to  undervalue  and  reject  all  sober,  regular 
plans  for  compassing  an  object,  and  to  muse  on 
improbabilities  till  they  become  foolish  enough  to 
expect  them?" 

In  the  first  place,  it  may  be  denied  that  one 
young  man  in  a  million  ever  built  his  hopes  of 
prosperity  or  love  upon  recollections  of  visionary 
relatives  in  Benares.  Even  real  uncles  are  forgot- 
ten when  they  never  return.  And,  secondly,  it  is 
not  to  be  assumed  that  the  remote  contingencies 
of  life  ought  to  be  always  rejected  as  hurtful. 
Good  fortune  is  an  useful  delusion.  The  im- 
probabilities of  experience  are  many,  the  impos- 
sibilities are  few.  The  rich  kinsman  may  not 
arrive  from  India  to  make  two  hearts  happy;  but 
circumstances  do  fall  out  in  a  way  altogether  con- 
trary to  expectation ;  helping  friends  rise  up  quite 
as  strangely  as  apparitions  of  Nabobs  from  the 
jungle;  and  the  dearest  chains  of  affection  are 
sometimes  riveted  by  means  scarcely  less  aston- 
ishing, and  certainly  not  more  anticipated,  than 
the  magical  cheque  of  the  dreamer.  Instead, 
therefore,  of  starting  from  a  romantic  danger,  I 
am  inclined,  under  proper  limitations,  to  welcome 


IRomance  anfc  Hovel  147 

a  moral  advantage.  It  is  something  to  keep  the 
spirits  up  in  so  long  and  harassing  a  journey ;  and 
even  the  pack-horse  goes  better  with  his  bells. 
That  passion,  which  is  the  informing  spirit  of  ro- 
mance, may  supply  true  discipline  to  the  mind. 
A  great  master  has  said,  "What  though  the  pur- 
suit be  fruitless  and  the  hope  visionary,  the  result 
may  be  a  real  and  substantial  benefit  of  another 
sort ;  and  the  vineyard  may  have  been  cultivated 
by  digging  in  it  for  a  treasure  which  is  never  to  be 
found." 

This  conclusion  invites  me  to  remember  an- 
other pleasure  which  Prose  fiction  shares  with 
poetic,  in  withdrawing  its  readers,  for  a  while, 
from  the  discomforts  of  their  condition.  It  pours 
sunlight  on  the  dingiest  window,  and  sows  a  rosy 
hedge  round  a  ruinous  dwelling.  Sterne  justly 
commended  it  for  cheating  fear  and  sorrow  of 
many  weary  moments,  and  leading  the  traveller 
from  the  hard  road  to  stray  upon  enchanted 
ground.  Naturally,  the  writer  himself  feels  the 
liveliest  power  of  the  spell.  Rousseau  wrote  the  let- 
ters of  Julia  on  small  sheets  of  paper,  which  he 
folded  and  read  in  his  walks,  with  as  much  rapture 
as  if  they  had  been  sent  to  him  by  the  post ;  and 
Richardson  wept  for  Clementina,  as  for  a  real 


i4s         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

sufferer.  The  reader  enjoys  the  same  enchant- 
ment according  to  his  sensibility.  Petrarch  was 
so  affected  by  Boccaccio's  story  of  Griseldis,  that 
he  wished,  as  he  assured  his  friend,  to  get  it  by 
heart ;  and  he  mentions  a  scholar  who,  having  un- 
dertaken to  read  it  to  a  company,  was  interrupted 
by  his  tears. 

If  we  look  into  biography,  we  find  that  the 
most  refined  and  the  strongest  thinkers— 
the  theologian,  the  poet,  and  the  metaphy- 
sician— have  turned  a  kind  eye  upon  fiction, 
which  beguiled  the  leisure  and  refreshed  the 
toil  of  Gray  and  Warburton,  of  Locke  and 
Crabbe. 

One  advantage  of  this  branch  of  literature  de- 
serves to  be  specified  with  particular  earnestness. 
It  gives  instruction  in  amusement.  Addison 
acknowledged  that  he  would  rather  inform  than 
divert  his  reader;  but  he  recollected  that  a  man 
must  be  familiar  with  wisdom  before  he  willingly 
enters  on  Seneca  and  Epictetus.  Fiction  allures 
him  to  the  severe  task  by  a  gayer  preface.  Em- 
bellished truths  are  the  painted  alphabet  of  larger 
children.  "We  endure  reproofs  from  our  friends 
in  leather  jackets,"  remarked  a  scholar  to  the 
lively  lady  of  Streatham,  "which  we  should  never 


IRomance  an&  IRovel  149 

support,  if  pronounced  by  our  contemporaries  in 
lace  and  tissue." 

Fiction,  like  the  drama,  speaks  to  our  hearts  by 
motion.  Mr.  All  worthy  was  acting  a  sermon 
upon  charity,  when  the  gentle  pressure  of  the 
strange  infant's  hand  on  one  of  his  fingers — 
seeming  to  implore  assistance — out-pleaded,  in 
a  moment,  the  indignant  proposal  of  Mrs.  Deb- 
orah to  put  it  in  a  warm  basket — as  the  night  was 
rainy — and  lay  it  at  the  Church-warden's  door; 
Corporal  Trim's  illustration  of  death,  by  the  fall- 
ing hat  in  the  kitchen,  strikes  the  fancy  more 
than  a  climax  of  Sherlock ;  and  the  Vicar  of  Wake- 
field  in  the  prison  is  a  whole  library  of  theology 
made  vocal. 

In  proportion  to  the  facility  and  the  vividness 
of  the  lesson,  must  be  the  oversight  of  its  char- 
acter. Richardson  never  sustained  a  heavier 
blow  than  the  fond  essayist  inflicted,  when  read- 
ing Pamela  on  the  grass  of  Primrose  Hill,  and 
being  joined  by  a  friendly  damsel,  who  desired 
to  read  in  company,  he  confessed,  "  I  could  have 
wished  it  had  been  any  other  book."  However 
ingeniously  the  highly-coloured  scenes  of  the 
classic  novelists  may  be  defended,  the  sober  judg- 
ment will  never  be  convinced.  To  say  that  they 


1 50         pleasures  of  Xiterature 

conduct  the  history  to  its  catastrophe,  and  have 
their  sting  drawn  by  the  moral,  is  like  telling  us 
to  live  tranquilly  over  a  cellar  of  combustibles, 
because  an  engine  with  abundance  of  water  is  at 
the  end  of  the  street. 

Walter  Scott  regarded  the  vices  and  follies  of 
Fielding's  celebrated  hero  as  those  which  the 
world  soon  teaches  to  all,  and  to  which  society  is 
accustomed  to  show  so  much  forbearance.  But 
it  has  been  well  observed,  that  he  neglected  to 
estimate  the  extent  to  which  that  false  indulgence 
may  be  the  effect  of  an  immoral  literature,  oper- 
ating through  a  long  course  of  years  upon  the 
individual  minds  of  which  society  is  composed. 
Men  are  quickly  acclimatised  in  sin;  and  the  eye, 
familiar  with  disease,  is  not  offended  by  a  few 
spots  on  the  page. 

During  the  early  popularity  of  Smollett  and 
Fielding,  Johnson  contributed  some  wise  sug- 
gestions respecting  the  employment  of  fiction. 
He  advised  the  novelist  to  display  virtue  in  its 
ideal  beauty,  not  angelical,  or  improbable, — be- 
cause we  only  imitate  what  we  believe, — but  the 
purest  and  noblest  within  our  reach.  This  se- 
lected character  he  wished  to  be  carried  through 
the  various  changes  and  trials  of  life,  in  order  that 


IRomance  an&  flovel  151 

by  its  victories  and  its  patience — the  afflictions  it 
vanquished  or  endured — we  may  be  taught  what 
to  hope  and  what  to  perform.  His  concluding 
sentence  is  fatal  to  great  names:  "Vice  should 
always  disgust;  nor  should  the  graces  of  gaiety, 
or  the  dignity  of  courage,  be  so  united  with  it  as  to 
reconcile  it  to  the  mind.  Whenever  it  appears  it 
should  raise  hatred  by  the  malignity  of  its  prac- 
tices, and  the  meanness  of  its  stratagems;  for 
while  it  is  supported  by  parts  or  spirit,  it  will  be 
seldom  heartily  abhorred." 

Such  are  some  of  the  pleasures  of  fiction.  As 
the  romance,  its  object  is  to  raise  the  mind  by 
proposing  to  it  for  imitation  characters  of  purity, 
courage,  and  resignation;  as  the  novel,  its  work 
is  to  check  and  amend  the  little  weaknesses  of 
temper,  by  humbling  reflections  of  them  upon 
the  mirror  of  the  tale.  When  fiction  fulfils  one 
or  other  of  these  duties,  it  deserves  to  be  num- 
bered among  the  aids  to  education.  The  finer 
feelings  are  called  forth,  and  objectionable  pecul- 
iarities are  repressed.  If  this  result,  in  some 
measure  at  least,  be  not  produced,  the  amusement 
is  vain.  Emotions  are  worthless  which  do  not 
grow  into  deeds ;  and  the  glass  of  manners  is  con- 
sulted to  no  purpose,  unless  the  defect  which  it 


152         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

exhibits  be  removed  or  weakened.  The  fruit  of 
fiction,  regarded  only  as  a  luxury,  will  always  be 
bitter;  and  we  may  expect  to  confirm  the  hard 
saying,  which  accused  it  of  enervating  the  under- 
standing and  corrupting  the  heart. 


XX 
HISTORY  AND  ITS  LESSONS 

HISTORY  presents  the  pleasantest  features  of 
poetry  and  fiction: — the  majesty  of  the 
epic;  the  moving  accidents  of  the  drama;  the 
surprises  and  moral  of  the  romance.  Wallace 
is  a  ruder  Hector ;  Robinson  Crusoe  is  not  stranger 
than  Croesus;  the  Knights  of  Ashby  never  burn- 
ish the  page  of  Scott  with  richer  lights  of  lance  and 
armour,  than  the  Carthaginians,  winding  down 
the  Alps,  cast  upon  Livy.  Froissart's  hero  has 
all  the  minute  painting  of  Richardson's.  The 
poetic  element  is  the  life-blood  of  the  story. 

History,  in  its  simplest  shape,  is  the  account  of 
a  journey  to  investigate  a  country,  its  inhabitants, 
or  one  particular  character.  St.  Paul  told  the 
Galatians  that  he  went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  see 
Peter — meaning  to  say,  that  he  visited  the  Apos- 
tle to  make  himself  more  familiar  with  his  mind 
and  feelings.  If  St.  Paul  had  written  all  that  he 
saw  and  heard  during  the  fifteen  days  of  his  abode 
153 


i54         {Pleasures  of  ^Literature 

it  would  have  been  a  "history."  Of  this  pure 
form  Herodotus  offers  the  largest  and  the  best 
specimens.  His  narrative  is  generally  founded 
upon  his  observation.  He  surveyed  the  battle- 
fields which  he  describes,  but,  keeping  no  regular 
journal,  and  relying  upon  memory  and  a  few 
notes,  he  fell  into  some  inaccuracies.  For  the 
most  part,  however,  he  has  the  freshness  of  an 
eye-witness.  His  picture  of  Egypt  is  a  moving 
panorama  of  the  Nile.  Into  whatever  region  he 
travels,  he  makes  the  reader  a  companion; 
whether  gazing  upon  the  superb  palace  of  Sais 
and  its  lighted  hall  of  odours,  the  sepulchral  Pyr- 
amids, or  Babylon — even  then  in  her  waning 
splendour — as  she  rose  to  the  Prophet's  eye,  "  the 
glory  of  kingdoms,  the  beauty  of  the  Chaldees' 
excellency."  The  interest  of  this  familiar  man- 
ner is  lively  and  lasting,  and  recalls  that  pleasant 
garrulity  of  Comines,  which  led  an  old  French 
reader  to  think  himself  in  the  company  of  an 
honest  gentleman  who  fought  all  his  battles  over 
again  when  the  cloth  was  removed. 

The  same  feeling  of  reality,  in  a  severer  tone, 
pleases  us  in  Thucydides.  Recording  the  troub- 
les of  Peloponnesus,  he  is  Wellington  telling  the 
tale  of  the  Peninsular  War.  To  the  same  class, 


•flMston?  ant)  its  Wessons        155 

in  ancient  days,  belong  Sallust  and  Tacitus;  in 
modern,  Guicciardini  and  Clarendon. 

The  second  manifestation  of  history  is  that  of 
narrative  founded  on  information  drawn  from 
others.  It  is  Paul's  visit  to  Peter  related  by 
Luke;  or,  the  Spanish  expedition  of  Scipio  told 
by  Polybius  on  the  testimony  of  Laslius.  Our 
Venerable  Bede  is  a  humbler  example. 

History,  in  its  third  variety,  loses  the  authority 
of  observation.  The  only  eye-sight  employed  is 
the  critical.  State-papers  replace  witnesses. 
Johnson  indicated  one  of  the  inconveniences  of 
this  change:  "He  who  describes  what  he  never 
saw,  draws  from  fancy.  Robertson  paints 
minds,  as  Sir  Joshua  paints  faces  in  a  history- 
piece." 

History  may  be  considered  in  three  lights — a 
pleasurable,  an  educational,  and  a  moral:  (i)  as 
it  entertains  the  fancy;  (2)  opens  new  sources  of 
instruction;  (3)  and  cherishes,  or  enlarges  feelings 
of  virtue.  In  the  first  light,  its  poetical  relation- 
ship is  clearly  marked.  Imagination  creates  no 
grander  episodes  than  the  rise  and  fall  of  empires. 
To  watch  the  first  smiles  and  motions  of  national 
life  in  its  cradle;  to  trace  the  growth,  the  matur- 
ity, and  the  decline  of  kingdoms;  to  observe  one 


i56         {Pleasures  of  ^Literature 

side  of  the  world  brightening  in  the  sun  of  civilisa- 
tion, while  the  other  lies  vapoury  and  cold;  to 
see,  in  the  course  of  years,  the  flourishing  region 
become  dim,  and  the  dark  country  glimmer  into 
warmth;  Athens  ascend  into  daylight,  and  Egypt 
sink  into  shadow;  learning  set  over  Greece  to  rise 
upon  Italy;  and  die  at  Rome  to  be  rekindled  at 
Bagdad, — these  are  visions  that  dazzle  the  eyes, 
and  people  the  fancy  of  a  poet. 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  modern  research 
be  as  profitable  as  it  is  ingenious.  Thucydides 
no  longer  weeps  at  the  recitation  of  Herodotus. 
Legends  of  beauty  continually  disappear,  and  the 
rents  in  history  become  plainer  as  the  ivy  is  torn 
away.  Some  eyes  look  sorrowfully  upon  this 
reformation.  In  the  exquisite  image  of  Landor, 
it  is  like  breaking  off  a  crystal  from  the  vault  of 
a  twilight  cavern,  out  of  mere  curiosity  to  see 
where  the  accretion  ends  and  the  rock  begins. 

The  historian  has  one  advantage  over  the  poet. 
He  is  not  obliged  to  look  abroad  for  shining  illus- 
trations, or  corresponding  scenes  of  action.  His 
images  are  ready;  his  field  of  combat  is  enclosed. 
He  wants  only  so  much  fancy  as  will  supply  col- 
our and  life  to  the  description.  Read  the  meeting 
of  Cyrus  and  Artaxerxes  in  Xenophon.  A  white 


an£>  its  Xessons        157 

cloud  spots  the  horizon ;  presently  it  grows  bigger, 
and  is  discovered  to  be  the  dust  raised  by  an  enor- 
mous army.  As  the  cloud  advances,  its  lower 
edge  of  mist  glitters  in  the  sun;  spear,  and  helm, 
and  shield  shoot  forth  and  vanish,  and  soon  the 
ranks  of  horse  and  foot,  with  the  armed  chariots, 
grow  distinctly  visible.  This  is  the  splendour  of 
the  epic;  it  is  Homer  in  prose. 

In  a  different  manner,  take  Drinkwater's  de- 
scription of  the  burning  of  the  Spanish  batteries 
at  the  siege  of  Gibraltar.  A  column  of  fire,  rolling 
from  the  works,  lights  up  the  soldiers  and  the  sur- 
rounding objects ;  ship  after  ship  is  caught  in  the 
conflagration ;  the  sea  is  dyed  in  a  red  blaze,  and 
through  the  drifting  smoke  dart  the  flames  of  the 
English  guns.  Tacitus,  whom  Warton  calls  a 
great  poet,  might  furnish  many  dark  scenes;  as  the 
sufferings  of  the  Roman  army  under  Csecina,  the 
dying  watch-fires,  the  troubled  slumbers,  and  the 
Spectre  dabbled  in  gore.  A  volume  of  Livy  is  a 
gallery  of  sketches. 

For  an  instance  of  the  dramatic  in  modern  his- 
tory, the  reader  may  go  to  Dalrymple.  Dundee, 
wandering  about  Lochaber,  with  a  few  miserable 
followers,  is  roused  by  news  of  an  English  army  in 
full  march  to  the  Pass  of  Killiecrankie.  His  hopes 


i5s         pleasures  of  literature 

revive.  He  collects  his  scattered  bands,  and  falls 
upon  the  enemy  filing  out  of  the  stern  gateway 
into  the  Highlands.  In  fourteen  minutes  in- 
fantry and  cavalry  are  broken.  Dundee,  fore- 
most in  pursuit,  as  in  attack,  outstrips  his  people; 
he  stops,  and  waves  his  hand  to  quicken  their 
speed;  while  he  is  pointing  eagerly  to  the  pass,  a 
musket-ball  pierces  his  armour.  He  rides  from 
the  field,  but,  soon  dropping  from  his  horse,  is  laid 
under  the  shade  of  trees  that  stand  near;  when 
he  has  recovered  of  the  faintness,  he  desires  his 
attendants  to  lift  him  up,  and,  turning  his  eyes  to 
the  field  of  combat,  inquires  how  things  went. 
Being  told  that  all  is  well,  he  replies  with  calm 
satisfaction,  "Then  I  am  well !"  and  expires. 

Our  poets  have  drawn  splendid  pictures  of 
heroes  falling  in  battle.  Ben  Jonson  shows  Cati- 
line with  his  fierce  hands  still  moving  among  the 
slain ;  Burns  exhibits  the  warrior  holding  forth  a 
bloody  welcome  to  death;  and  Scott  surpassed 
both  in  Marmion  waving  his  broken  sword  over 
his  head,  and  shouting  "Victory!"  But  the  clos- 
ing scene  of  Dundee  is  the  most  affecting.  Every 
circumstance  heightens  the  catastrophe.  His 
bed  is  the  wild  heather,  shut  in  by  a  mountain 
bastion,  of  which  the  gloom  is  broken  by  frequent 


Ibistors  anb  Its  Wessons        159 

flashes  of  random  guns.  The  pass  stretches  in 
dreary  twilight  before  us.  The  sound  is  in  our 
ears  of  a  dark  river,  foaming  among  splintered 
rocks — ever  tumbling  down  and  losing  itself  in 
thick  trees,  while  the  eagle  utters  a  lonely  scream 
over  the  carnage,  and  sails  away  into  the  rolling 
vapours. 

History  enjoying  the  pomp  and  circumstance 
of  poetry,  is  confined  within  narrower  bound- 
aries, and  governed  by  stricter  laws.  Its  por- 
traits ought  to  be  likenesses,  so  far  as  the  writer's 
industry  may  acquaint  him  with  the  features  of 
his  characters.  Peter  the  Great  is  always  brutal 
on  one  side;  and  the  senatorial  dignity  of  Titian 
only  allegorises  a  French  convention.  But  pop- 
ular opinion  allows  more  liberty  to  the  pen  and 
the  pencil.  It  makes  faithfulness  subordinate  to 
impression.  Hannibal  is  never  to  be  one-eyed, 
nor  Marshal  Vendome  humpbacked.  The  fame 
of  a  statesman  must  be  written  on  his  face,  and  the 
victories  of  a  general  in  his  muscles.  No  lean 
hand  may  grasp  the  spear  of  Achilles.  A  Dutch 
Scipio  shuffles  off  the  burgomaster,  and  strides 
into  his  frame  in  a  toga. 

This  view  is  encouraged  by  Reynolds,  speaking 
the  sentiment  of  an  age  when  Garrick  played 


160        pleasures  of  ^Literature 

Macbeth  in  a  court-dress,  with  bag-wig  and  sword ; 
and  West  astonished  the  world  of  art  by  exhibit- 
ing the  death  of  Wolfe  in  all  the  simple  grandeur 
of  its  truth.  Reynolds,  indeed,  acknowledged 
his  error  in  that  half-hour  which  he  spent  before 
the  finished  picture  of  the  hero;  yet  it  may  be 
conjectured  that  his  prejudice  was  rather  modi- 
fied than  removed.  His  theory  of  classical  dig- 
nity in  general  would  probably  remain  as  it  was 
before;  and  the  ennobled  presence  of  St.  Paul  in 
the  cartoon  be  still  the  object  of  his  admiration. 
The  epical  prince  of  RafTaelle  may  be  nearer  to 
nature  than  the  vulgar  mechanic  of  Bassano;  but 
the  thoughtful  eye  looks  for  a  middle  form  of  ex- 
pression, which  shall  be  heroic,  while  it  is  real,  and 
familiar,  without  being  common.  A  painter  is  a 
historian  writing  with  a  pencil.  But  would  Aquila 
and  his  wife  have  recognised  their  Hebrew  brother 
-"in  his  bodily  presence  mean" — who  abode 
with  them,  and  wrought  at  Corinth?  or  would 
Lydia,  the  seller  of  purple,  have  known,  by  a 
glance,  the  stranger  whom  she  met  along  the  river- 
side at  Philippi  ?  The  moral  of  an  exploit  vanishes 
in  the  exaggeration  of  the  doer.  Surely  that  art 
is  the  truest  which  preserves  and  dignifies  a  defect. 
Let  Agesilaus  keep  his  hobble;  and  the  neck  of 


Tbistorg  anfc  its  Xessons         161 

Augustus  be  awry  in  the  marble.  Show  Falk- 
land with  an  ungainly  figure,  and  a  rustic  face 
brightened  by  inward  beauty.  Are  we  to  look 
for  a  hero  whose  nobility  is  of  the  soul,  and  to  be- 
hold only  the  tallest  grenadier  of  the  column? 
Why  should  Johnson's  eyes  be  alike  upon  canvas  ? 
Is  Milton  to  be  cropped  in  a  frontispiece? 

We  have  an  example  of  this  false  history-paint- 
ing in  the  story  of  Nelson's  coat  at  Trafalgar.  He 
is  reported  to  have  silenced  the  affectionate  im- 
portunity of  his  officers,  entreating  him  to  conceal 
the  stars  on  his  breast,  by  saying,  "  In  honour  I 
gained  them,  and  in  honour  I  will  die  with  them." 
This  is  the  utterance  of  the  great  style.  Tacitus 
could  not  have  put  a  finer  sentiment  into  the 
mouth  of  Agricola.  But  its  merit  is  simply  im- 
aginative. Dr.  Arnold  heard  the  facts  from  Sir 
Thomas  Hardy.  Nelson  wore  on  the  day  of  the 
battle  the  same  coat  which  he  had  worn  for  weeks, 
having  the  Order  of  the  Bath  embroidered  upon 
it;  and  when  his  friend  expressed  some  appre- 
hension of  the  badge,  he  answered  him  that  he 
was  aware  of  the  danger,  but  that  it  was  "  too  late 
then  to  shift  a  coat." 

The  circumstance  suggests  a  caution  not  to  look 
on  great  causes  of  great  things.  A  pamphlet 


162          pleasures  of  ^Literature 

often  unlocks  an  octavo.  Nothing  is  too  con- 
temptible to  make  a  political  catastrophe.  The 
Peace  of  Utrecht  was  a  squabble  of  the  bedcham- 
ber; and  we  have  the  assurance  of  Burke  that  the 
war-cry  of  Walpole's  enemies  was  only  the  hunger 
of  party  breaking  its  chain. 

History  is  to  be  regarded  in  an  educational 
light,  as  it  opens  new  sources  of  information.  A 
scholar  is  six  thousand  years  old,  and  learned 
brickmaking  under  Pharaoh.  Never  lived  such  a 
citizen  of  the  world;  he  was  Assyrian  at  Babylon, 
Lacedaemonian  at  Sparta,  Roman  at  Rome,  Egyp- 
tian at  Alexandria.  He  has  been  by  turns  a 
traveller,  a  merchant,  a  man  of  letters,  and  a 
commander-in-chief ;  presented  at  every  court,  he 
knew  Daniel,  and  sauntered  through  the  picture 
gallery  of  Richelieu.  Dryden  called  history  a 
perspective  glass,  carrying  the  mind  to  a  vast 
distance,  and  taking  in  the  remotest  objects  of 
antiquity. 

How  many  battles  by  sea  and  land  the  student 
has  witnessed!  He  clambered  with  the  Greeks 
along  the  rocky  shore  of  Pylus;  he  heard  the  roar 
of  falling  houses  when  the  Turks  stormed  Rhodes; 
three  times  he  was  beaten  back  with  Conde  by 
that  terrible  Spanish  infantry,  which  tossed  of? 


an&  its  SLessons         163 

the  French  fire  like  foam  from  the  cliff;  he  recog- 
nised Dante  in  the  struggle  of  Campaldino;  stood 
by  the  side  of  Cervantes  when  an  arquebus 
carried  away  his  left  hand;  and  stooped  with  a 
misty  lantern  over  the  bleeding  body  of  Moore. 

A  cultivated  reader  of  history  is  domesticated 
in  all  families;  he  dines  with  Pericles,  and  sups 
with  Titian.  The  Athenian  fish-bell  invites  him 
to  the  market  to  cheapen  a  noisy  poulterer,  or  ex- 
change compliments  with  a  bakeress  of  inordinate 
fluency.  A  monk  illuminating  a  missal,  and 
Caxton  pulling  his  first  proof,  are  among  the  pleas- 
ant entries  of  his  diary.  He  still  stops  his  ears  to 
the  bellowing  of  Cleon ;  and  remembers,  as  of  yes- 
terday, the  rhetorical  frown  of  the  old  tapestry, 
and  the  scarlet  drapery  of  Pitt. 

To  study  history  is  to  study  literature.  The 
biography  of  a  nation  embraces  all  its  works.  No 
trifle  should  be  neglected.  A  mouldering  medal 
is  a  letter  of  twenty  centuries.  Antiquities,  which 
have  been  beautifully  called  history  defaced, 
compose  its  fullest  commentary.  In  these  wrecks 
of  many  storms,  which  time  washes  to  the  shore, 
the  scholar  looks  patiently  for  treasure.  The 
painting  round  a  vase,  the  scribble  on  a  wall,  the 
wrath  of  a  demagogue,  the  drollery  of  a  farce,  the 


1 64         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

point  of  an  epigram — each  possesses  its  own  inter- 
est and  value.  A  fossil  court  of  law  is  dug  out 
of  an  orator;  and  the  Pompeii  of  Greece  is  dis- 
covered in  the  Comedies  of  Aristophanes. 

Lord  Bacon  denounced  abridgments  with  elo- 
quent anger.  But  who  can  traverse  all  history? 
When  Johnson  was  asked  by  Boswell  if  he  should 
read  Du  Halde's  account  of  China,  he  said,  "  Why, 
yes,  as  one  reads  such  books — that  is  to  say,  con- 
sult." Of  many  large  volumes  the  index  is  the 
best  portion  and  the  most  useful.  A  glance 
through  the  casement  gives  all  needful  knowledge 
of  the  interior.  An  epitome  is  only  a  book  short- 
ened; and,  as  a  general  rule,  the  worth  increases 
as  the  size  lessens.  There  is  truth  in  Young's 
comparison  of  elaborate  compilations  to  the  iron 
money  of  Lycurgus,  of  which  the  weight  was  so 
enormous,  and  the  value  so  small,  that  a  yoke  of 
oxen  only  drew  five  hundred  pounds  sterling. 
The  lives  of  nations,  as  of  individuals,  concentrate 
their  lustre  and  interest  in  a  few  passages.  Cer- 
tain episodes  should  be  selected ;  such  as  the  ages 
of  Pericles  and  Augustus,  Elizabeth  and  Leo, 
Louis  XIV.  and  Charles  V.  Sometimes  a  particular 
chapter  embraces  the  wonders  of  a  century;  as 
the  feudal  system,  the  dawn  of  discovery,  and 


ant>  its  ^Lessens         165 

the  printing  press.  The  fragments  ought  to  be 
bound  together  by  a  connecting  line  of  knowledge, 
however  slender,  encircling  the  whole  fields  of 
inquiries.  The  regal,  the  ecclesiastical,  and  the 
commercial  elements  are  to  be  combined.  The 
visitor  must  not  spend  his  leisure  in  the  Coliseum, 
to  the  exclusion  of  St.  Peter's;  nor  think  him- 
self familiar  with  London,  unless  he  goes  to  the 
Exchange. 

The  third  aspect  of  history  is  the  moral,  as  it 
cherishes  the  feelings  of  virtue,  and  enlarges  their 
action.  Southey  felt  confident  that  Clarendon, 
put  into  his  youthful  hands,  would  have  preserved 
him  from  the  political  follies  which  he  lived  to 
regret  and  outgrow.  Guicciardini,  also,  has  some 
claim  to  his  reputation  of  communicating  high 
thoughts  to  his  readers;  but  the  assertion  that 
historians,  in  general,  have  been  the  true  friends 
of  virtue,  will  be  rejected  by  all  except  the  credu- 
lous, or  the  indifferent. 

We  have  only  one  national  record  of  which  the 
single  design  is  to  elevate  and  direct  the  mind. 
Jewish  history  is  God's  illuminated  clock  set  in 
the  dark  steeple  of  time.  It  is  man's  world  which 
common  narrative  describes.  Actions  are  weighed 
in  man's  scales.  The  magnitude  of  a  deed  deter- 


166         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

mines  its  character.  Paul  Jones  is  a  pirate;  Na- 
poleon is  a  conqueror.  One  assassination  is  a 
murder;  ten  thousand  deaths  are  glory.  Yet  it 
is  supposable  that,  in  the  eyes  of  angels,  a  struggle 
down  a  dark  lane  and  a  battle  of  Leipsic  differ 
only  in  excess  of  wickedness. 

History  is  a  moral  teacher,  however,  in  despite 
of  its  ministers.  When  Poussin  gathered  a  hand- 
ful of  dust  from  the  ground,  and  declared  it  to  be 
ancient  Rome,  he  was  abridging  philosophy  in  an 
epitaph.  Tyre,  burned  by  Alexander,  and  sacked 
by  the  Mamelukes,  is  a  homily  on  fortune. 

"  What  does  not  Fate?    The  tower  that  long  had  stood 
The  crashing  thunder  and  the  warring  winds, 
Shook  by  the  sure  but  slow  destroyer  Time, 
Now  hangs,  in  doubtful  ruin  o'er  its  base, 
And  flinty  pyramids  and  walls  of  brass 
Descend.     The  Babylonian  spires  are  sunk  ; 
Achaia,  Rome,  and  Egypt  moulder  down. 
Time  shakes  the  stable  tyranny  of  thrones, 
And  tottering  empires  sink  with  their  own  weight." 

There  is  a  sound  of  solemn  sadness  in  the  say- 
ing, that  the  glory  of  man  is  but  as  the  flower  of 
grass— a  more  perishable  thing  than  the  grass 
itself,  more  alluring  to  the  eye,  but  exposed  to 
fiercer  enemies,  and  to  the  swifter  ruin  of  the 


ant)  its  ^Lessons         167 

scythe.  They  are  gone — the  tyrants  of  ancient 
dynasties,  with  their  splendour  and  cruelty — and 
have  bequeathed  to  their  successors  the  warning 
voice  of  the  Prophet,  "Where  will  ye  leave  your 
glory  ?  "  Think  of  the  question  having  been 
asked  of  Sesostris,or  Belshazzar!  But  so  it  comes 
to  pass.  Their  magnificence  is  taken  off,  like 
robes  and  crowns  when  a  coronation  is  over. 
The  great  conqueror  strikes  his  sword  into  life, 
and  a  gulf  yawns  between  Caesar  and  his  legions. 
The  glory  remains  on  this  side  of  the  chasm.  The 
light  of  an  empire  dies  out,  like  embers  on  a  cot- 
tager's hearth.  All  the  flashing  shields  of  Persia, 
with  the  throne  of  Xerxes  in  the  midst,  could  not 
cast  one  ray  into  the  shadows.  How  is  the  king 
to  summon  his  guard  ?  What  bridge  may  swing 
across  the  darkness  between  eternity  and  time? 

But  history  teaches  another  lesson  from  the 
grandeur  of  olden  monarchs,  before  the  moth 
fretted  their  purple.  It  was  not  alone  the  crum- 
pled roseleaf  that  tortured  their  enervated  senses. 
Fears,  mysterious  and  spectral,  continually  rose 
up  with  menacing  aspect.  Oriental  annals  are 
funeral  sermons.  Southey  has  painted,  with  a 
truthful  sublimity,  the  feelings  of  Mohammedan 
sovereigns, — mourners  in  magnificent  festivals, 


168         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

wretched  in  the  sunshine  and  smiles  of  beauty, 
and  ever  listening,  in  the  golden  palace,  for  the 
destroyer's  trumpet  at  the  gate.  The  apprehen- 
sion haunted  them  in  youth,  and  overwhelmed 
them  with  a  horrible  dread  in  age.  A  vision  in 
the  night,  a  strain  of  music,  a  strange  face  in 
needle-work,  startled  them  into  tears.  "Ha- 
roun  al  Raschid  opened  a  volume  of  poems,  and 
read,  'Where  are  the  kings,  and  where  are  the  rest 
of  the  world  ?  They  are  gone  the  way  which  thou 
shalt  go.  O  thou  who  choosest  a  perishable 
world,  and  callest  him  happy  whom  it  glorifies, 
take  what  the  world  can  give  thee,  but  death  is 
at  the  end!'  And  at  these  words,  he  who  had 
murdered  Yahia  and  the  Barmecides  wept." 

Whatever  chapter  of  history  we  open,  some 
text  of  alarm  strikes  our  eye.  Europe  shares  the 
terrors  of  Asia.  In  the  noble  words  of  Raleigh, 
"Death,  which  hateth  and  destroyeth  a  man,  is 
believed;  God,  which  hath  made  him  and  loves 
him,  is  always  deferred."  But  conscience,  chilled 
by  the  stealing  shadow,  tosses  on  its  bed.  Charles 
the  Fifth  unclutches  Navarre;  and  the  remem- 
bered blood  of  martyrs  drops  heavily — the  warn- 
ing of  the  storm— upon  the  pillow  of  Francis. 


XXI 

HOME-VIEWS  OF  HISTORY- 
BIOGRAPHY 

HISTORY  is  a  great  painter,  with  the  world 
for  a  canvas,  and  life  for  a  figure.  It  dis- 
plays man  in  his  pride,  and  nature  in  her  magnifi- 
cence— Jerusalem  bleeding  under  the  Roman,  or 
Lisbon  vanishing  in  flame  and  earthquake.  His- 
tory must  be  splendid.  Bacon  called  it  the  pomp 
of  business.  Its  march  is  in  high  places,  and 
along  the  "pinnacles  and  points  of  great  affairs." 
The  extent  and  brilliancy  of  the  picture  render  the 
execution  difficult  and  unsatisfactory.  The  his- 
torian cannot  isolate  a  hero,  or  a  saint.  The  con- 
tagion of  some  infamous  example  infects  his 
narrative.  The  impudent  stare  of  a  Castlemaine 
confronts  a  Barrow.  Sir  Thomas  Browne  had 
this  inconvenience  in  his  thoughts,  when  he  com- 
plained that  history  sets  down  things  which  ought 
never  to  have  been  done,  or  never  to  have  been 
known,  and  suggested  the  advantage  of  choosing 
169 


1 7o         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

noble  patterns  from  among  different  nations. 
Such  a  choice  makes  biography,  of  which  Fuller 
has  sketched  a  happy  outline,  declaring  its  proper 
aim  and  task  to  consist  in— (i)  gaining  some  glory 
to  God;  (2)  preserving  the  memory  of  the  dead; 
(3)  holding  forth  examples  to  the  living;  (4)  and 
furnishing  entertainment  to  the  reader. 

The  last  quality  gives  to  biography  the  most 
attractive  shape  of  instruction.  The  voyage  and 
the  journey  of  life  are  related  with  every  variety 
of  accidents,  shipwrecks,  and  escapes.  Biogra- 
phy is  the  home-view  of  history,  as  it  gives  the 
history  of  manners.  It  is  Washington  in  his  corn- 
fields at  Mount  Vernon;  or  Pitt  sowing  the  frag- 
mentary opera-hat  in  the  garden.  "  For  my  own 
part,"  is  the  confession  of  Dryden,  referring  to 
history,  in  which  he  included  biography,  "who 
must  confess  it  to  my  shame,  that  I  never  read 
anything  but  for  pleasure,  it  has  always  been  the 
most  delightful  entertainment  of  my  life."  The 
same  passion  was  pleasantly  manifested  in  the 
Danish  poet,  Oehlenschlager,  who,  when  a  boy, 
and  leading  his  father's  choir  at  church,  listened 
eagerly  to  the  lessons  of  the  day,  but  disappeared 
behind  the  organ  at  the  first  hint  of  the  divided 
sermon. 


171 

Plutarch,  by  the  general  consent  of  criticism, 
is  the  representative  of  popular  biography.  He 
has  three  of  Fuller's  distinctive  notes  very  largely 
developed;  nor,  according  to  his  measure  of  know- 
ledge and  light,  is  he  wanting  in  the  religious 
element.  A  rhymer  of  a  former  day  asserts  his 
claim  to  our  admiration  and  regard: 

"  O  blest  Biography  !  thy  charms  of  yore 
Historic  Truth  to  strong  affection  bore  ; 
And  fostering  Virtue  gave  thee,  as  thy  dower, 
Of  both  thy  parents  the  attractive  power 
To  win  the  heart,  the  wavering  thought  to  fix, 
And  fond  delight  with  wise  instruction  mix. 
First  of  thy  votaries,  peerless  and  alone, 
Thy  PLUTARCH  shines,  by  moral  beauty  known  ; 
Enchanting  Sage  ;  whose  living  lessons  teach 
What  heights  of  Virtue  human  efforts  reach." 

Plutarch  stands  between  the  historian,  the 
poet,  and  the  romancer,  and  catches  beautiful 
lights  from  all.  His  account  of  Theseus  resem- 
bles a  legend  from  an  old  chronicle,  or  a  chapter 
of  magic.  He  indicates  his  theory  of  composition 
at  the  beginning  of  "Alexander,"  where  he  ob- 
serves that  the  virtues  or  the  vices  of  men  are  not 
always  seen  best  in  their  most  distinguished,  or 
notorious  exploits;  but  that  oftentimes  an  indif- 


i72          pleasures  ot  ^Literature 

ferent  action,  a  short  saying,  or  a  ready  jest,  opens 
more  intricacies  of  the  true  character  than  a  siege, 
or  a  battle.  He  supports  his  argument  by  the 
practice  of  painters,  who  bestow  their  chief  la- 
bour on  the  face  and  eyes  of  the  sitter,  and  run 
over  other  parts  of  the  picture  with  a  hastier 
brush.  In  like  manner  the  biographer,  whose 
books  are  portraits,  is  recommended  to  copy  with 
diligence  the  features  of  the  mind.  The  detail 
and  circumstances  of  a  scholar's  industry,  or  a 
politician's  plot,  he  can  touch  in  a  broad  outline, 
or  leave  to  historical  inquirers. 

Plutarch's  Lives  recall  Titian's  portraits.  He 
shows  the  face  of  a  hero,  or  a  philosopher,  in  the 
glow  or  the  shadows  of  thought  and  motion.  His 
individuality  is  never  hard.  He  causes  the  repre- 
sentation of  character  to  help  the  attainment  of  a 
general  and  striking  effect.  His  memoirs  are  the 
picturesque  of  biography.  Reading  becomes 
sight  as  some  vivid  touch  animates  and  fixes  the 
scene.  Caesar  in  the  Senate  House,  surrounded 
by  conspirators,  and  turning  his  face  in  every 
direction,  meets  only  the  gleam  of  steel;  Pyrrhus, 
wounded  and  faint,  suddenly  opens  his  eyes  on 
Zopyrus,  in  the  act  of  waving  a  sword  over  his 
neck,  and  darts  at  him  so  fierce  a  look,  that  he 


— 3Biograpb£  173 

springs  back  in  terror,  and  his  hands  tremble;  on 
another  occasion,  the  white  charger  of  Sylla, 
lashed  by  a  servant  who  saw  his  danger,  carries 
the  rider  with  a  plunge  between  two  falling 
spears. 

The  slight  circumstances  of  Plutarch  are  not 
mere  anecdotes,  inserted  for  the  sake  of  amuse- 
ment. They  are  traits  of  feeling  and  disposition ; 
short  lines  from  a  page  of  the  heart  put  into  italics. 
Homer  is  not  more  pleasantly  natural.  He  tells 
us  of  his  little  girl,  and  her  anxiety  that  her  dolls 
might  share  in  the  attentions  of  the  nurse.  One 
stroke  of  the  pen  identifies  Agesilaus.  Returning 
from  the  victory  of  Chaeronea,  he  makes  no  altera- 
tion in  his  furniture,  or  establishment,  and  wishes 
his  daughter  to  be  contented  with  her  plain 
wooden  carriage.  We  have  all  the  wilfulness  of 
Cleopatra  epitomised,  when,  to  avoid  discovery, 
she  rolls  herself  in  a  carpet,  and,  being  carefully 
tied  up  at  full  length,  is  delivered  in  the  dusk  of 
the  evening,  like  a  large  parcel,  at  the  palace  of 
Caesar. 

Occasionally  he  introduces  little  views  of  fields 
and  gardens,  which  are  extremely  agreeable. 
When  Lucullus,  abandoning  his  Parthian  expe- 
dition, marched  in  the  middle  of  summer  against 


i74         pleasures  ot  literature 

Tigranes,  and  had  gained  the  summit  of  Mount 
Taurus,  he  saw  with  wonder  that  the  corn  was  still 
green.  At  a  later  season,  his  soldiers  were  wetted 
every  day  in  the  narrow  woody  roads,  by  snow 
that  fell  on  them  from  the  trees. 

The  charm  of  Plutarch  has  allured  many  imita- 
tors. In  modern  times,  Vasari  breathed  into  the 
histories  of  painters  the  engaging  simplicity  and 
freshness  of  the  Greek.  We  seem  to  listen  to  the 
masters  whom  he  describes,  and  find  the  exclama- 
tion of  Lanzi  upon  our  tongue.  It  was  thus  that 
RafTaelle  and  Andrea  taught  their  scholars,  and 
the  sharp,  quick  sentence  flashed  from  the  lips  of 
Buonarotti.  It  is  true  that  the  reputation  of 
Vasari  has  been  built  up  by  scholarly  hands.  He 
enjoyed  the  aid  which  Reynolds  was  accused  of 
concealing,  and  had  his  Johnson  in  a  Camalduline 
monk. 

Hume  wished  Robertson  to  adopt  this  familiar 
kind  of  history,  and  make  Plutarch  his  model  for 
a  series  of  modern  lives.  Avoiding  disquisition, 
the  characters  of  celebrated  persons  were  to  be 
illustrated  by  domestic  anecdotes,  striking  obser- 
vations, and  a  general  sketch  of  their  employ- 
ments. Hume  also  turned  the  eye  of  his  friend 
upon  the  little  groups  of  inferior  actors,  with 


1bistor£— Bfograpbs  175 

faces  more  or  less  known,  whom,  in  his  happy 
phrase,  we  meet  in  the  corners  of  history. 

The  proposal  was  ingenious,  as  it  showed  the 
way  to  fill  a  gallery  with  portraits  of  discoverers, 
statesmen,  artists,  and  men  of  letters.  The  an- 
nals of  an  age  would  be  combined  in  a  single  view; 
while  the  reader,  standing  in  the  open  field,  and 
overlooking  the  barren  places,  might  gather  all 
the  flowers,  and  make  everything  good  and  pleas- 
ant his  own. 

The  least  interesting  form  of  biography  is  the 
political.  A  life  of  Walpole  is  a  prolonged  record 
of  the  wrangling  of  party.  Who  cares  for  Harley, 
except  as  the  friend  of  Pope?  The  lives  of  sol- 
diers are  scarcely  more  satisfactory.  The  incidents 
are  sorrows;  and  only  in  rare  cases,  as  in  the  Brit- 
ish struggle  with  Napoleon,  is  the  sympathy  of 
the  reader  justly  awakened.  We  must  wade  over 
a  thousand  dreary  chapters  of  ambition  and  blood, 
before  the  leaf  opens  upon  Waterloo  or  Corunna. 
The  sea  is  fruitfuller  of  instruction;  and  Nelson 
and  Collingwood  supply  manuals  of  patriotism. 
The  hardships  of  the  sailor  bring  out  another  in- 
stance of  Johnson's  waywardness.  Cook's  voy- 
ages had  just  appeared,  and,  pointing  to  them,  he 
exclaimed,  "A  man  had  better  work  his  way  be- 


176         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

fore  the  mast,  than  read  these  through.  There 
can  be  no  entertainment  in  such  books."  Yet  a 
voyage,  which  is  only  a  life  upon  water,  seems  to 
possess  that  variety  of  daring  and  escape  which 
common  lives  want.  Its  reality  is  romance.  The 
sufferings  of  Anson  live  with  the  faery  tale  of 
childhood,  and  the  battered  ship  still  drops  to 
anchor  with  its  ghastly  crew,  before  the  green  and 
happy  Island.  The  story  of  La  Perouse  is  a  scene 
of  tragedy  that  touches  other  hearts,  besides  that 
of  the  poet  who  said — 

"  His  pages  had  a  zest 

More  sweet  than  fiction  to  my  wondering  breast, 
When,  rapt  in  fancy,  many  a  boyish  day 
I  tracked  his  wanderings  o'er  the  watery  way. 

"  He  came  not  back — Conjecture's  cheek  grew  pale, 
Year  after  year  in  no  propitious  gale, 
His  lilied  banner  held  its  homeward  way, 
And  Science  saddened  at  her  Martyr's  stay." 

Biography,  exclusively  serious,  or  devotional, 
contains  many  elements  of  beauty.  The  seques- 
tered teacher,  the  zealous  missionary,  and  the 
glorified  martyr,  have  distinctive  features  of  sub- 
limity and  tenderness.  How  curious  is  our  sensa- 
tion in  closing  an  account  of  Marlborough,  or 
Richelieu,  and  taking  up  the  gentle  portraitures 


177 

of  Walton.  It  is  like  being  suddenly  carried  from 
the  Thames,  between  London  and  Greenwich, 
rocking  its  stately  ships,  and  lined  by  busy 
wharves,  into  the  pastoral  Wye,  with  its  green 
farms,  and  the  solemn  ruins  of  God's  house. 
Compare  a  splendid  saloon  in  Paris  with  the  holy 
scene  in  the  old  palace  of  Salisbury,  where  we 
behold 

"  The  trusty  staff  that  Jewel  gave 
To  youthful  Hooker,  in  familiar  style 
The  gift  exalting,  and  with  playful  smile." 

The  panegyric  once  spoken  of  a  departed  saint 
is  true  of  every  other;  and  if  an  age  be  evil  and 
deserve  him  not,  it  is  the  more  needful  to  have 
such  lives  preserved  in  memory,  to  instruct  our 
piety,  or  upbraid  our  sins.  "And  so,  after  the 
tree  of  Paradise  has  been  cut  down,  the  dead  trunk 
may  help  to  uphold  the  falling  temple,  or  kindle 
a  fire  upon  the  altar." 

The  history  of  men  of  science  has  one  peculiar 
advantage,  as  it  shows  the  importance  of  little 
things  in  producing  great  results.  Smeaton 
learned  his  principle  of  constructing  a  lighthouse, 
by  noticing  the  trunk  of  a  tree  to  be  diminished 
from  a  curve  to  a  cylinder;  Rembrandt's  marvel- 
lous system  of  splendour  and  shade  was  suggested 


iy8          pleasures  of  ^Literature 

by  accidental  gleams  of  light  in  his  father's  mill ; 
White,  of  Selborne,  carrying  about  in  his  rides 
and  walks  a  list  of  birds  to  be  investigated,  and 
Newton,  turning  an  old  box  into  a  water-clock, 
or  the  yard  of  a  house  into  a  sun-dial,  are  examples 
of  those  habits  of  patient  observation  which  biog- 
raphy attractively  recommends. 

But  the  annals  of  pure  literature  afford  the 
highest  gratification,  whether  the  subject  be  a 
poet,  philosopher,  or  that  refined  inquirer  after 
beauty  and  wisdom  who  passes  under  the  uni- 
versal name  of  scholar.  It  was  the  belief  of  John- 
son that  no  literary  life  in  England  had  been  well 
written.  The  gorgeous  tale  of  genius  is  always 
half  told.  Time,  which  destroys  its  memorials, 
enlarges  its  lustre.  It  is  only  since  biography 
and  letters  are  convertible  into  gold,  that  the  con- 
temporaries of  famous  men  preserve  and  publish 
the  sayings  of  the  departed.  How  we  might  have 
rejoiced  if  Occleve,  instead  of  prefixing  to  a  manu- 
script a  portrait  of  Chaucer,  had  given  a  few 
recollections  of  the  poet  himself,  and  fragments  of 
his  table-talk  about  the  Pilgrimage  to  Canterbury; 
or  if  Ben  Jonson,  who  survived  Shakespeare 
twenty-one  years,  had  presented  to  the  world  a 
short  review  of  his  friend's  festive  evenings !  But 


179 

the  age  made  no  sign  when  its  noblest  son  passed 
away.  The  birth,  the  marriage,  the  authorship, 
and  the  retirement  of  Shakespeare  composed  his 
biography.  If  we  seek  for  news  of  prejudices, 
infirmities,  charity,  and  love,  it  is  found  in  his 
verses  alone.  Deep  is  the  sigh  of  taste  for  lost 
treasures,  whether  it  muses  upon  the  sweet,  seri- 
ous conversation  of  Spenser,  the  gilded  current 
of  Hooker's  thoughtful  ness,  the  variegated  wis- 
dom of  Milton,  the  magnificent  explorings  of 
Bacon,  or  the  paradisaical  dreams  of  Taylor. 
Few  footprints  remain  on  the  sand  before  the 
ever-flowing  tide.  Long  ago  it  washed  out  Ho- 
mer's. Curiosity  follows  him  in  vain.  Greece 
and  Asia  perplex  us  with  a  rival  Stratford-upon- 
Avon.  The  rank  of  Aristophanes  is  only  conjec- 
tured from  his  gift  to  two  poor  players  of  Athens. 
Of  every  country  and  season  the  complaint  is  felt 
and  uttered.  Precious  would  be  the  journal  by 
a  Florentine  Defoe  of  the  indoor  occupations  of 
Dante.  Think  of  beholding,  as  in  a  clear  glass, 
Macchiavelli  living  along  the  lines  of  his  political 
web;  Galileo  watching  the  moon  plough  her  way 
across  the  clouds ;  or  Tasso,  with  Polybius  in  his 
hand,  marshalling  the  knights  of  Godfrey. 
The  most  delightful  life  is  that  which  a  loving 


i8o         pleasures  of  ^literature 

friend  or  admirer  composes  from  his  own  recollec- 
tions. Boswell's  Johnson  is  the  model  and  the 
masterpiece.  In  a  humbler  way,  Roger  North's 
account  of  the  Lordkeeper  Guildford  and  his  two 
brothers  is  admirable  for  its  dramatic  truth  and 
character.  Of  one  of  these,  a  Turkish  merchant, 
who  returned  to  England  in  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  Second,  he  has  left  a  sketch  so  lively  and  par- 
ticular, that  we  seem  to  have  lived  in  the  same 
house.  We  accompany  him  to  Bridewell,  and 
mark  his  trepidation  at  the  turnkey  with  the  gruff 
voice,  who  recalled  the  alarming  "Chiaus"  of 
Constantinople;  we  hold  our  breath  at  his  daring 
adventure  in  the  tower  of  Bow  Church,  when  he 
swung  his  corpulent  body  round  the  column;  or 
take  his  arm  to  St.  Paul's,  on  Saturdays,  when 
Sir  Christopher  Wren  was  there,  to  have  "a 
snatch  of  discourse"  about  the  building. 

The  account  of  Wolsey  by  Cavendish  has  the 
same  truthfulness  and  reality.  It  is  a  picture- 
book  done  by  the  pen.  What  a  breathing,  mov- 
ing panorama  is  the  Cardinal's  day!  The  two 
"masses"  being  over,  he  comes  from  his  chamber 
about  eight  of  the  clock,  all  in  red,  with  an  upper 
garment  of  taffety,  or  most  commonly  of  fine 
crimson  satin  engrained;  his  tippet  of  sables  is 


HMstorg— Bfograpbs  181 

round  his  neck,  and  in  his  hand  he  carries  the 
mysterious  orange,  full  of  aromatic  sponge,  and 
anxiously  held  to  the  nose  when  the  throng  presses 
him,  or  a  suitor  grows  troublesome.  Not  a  fea- 
ture of  the  procession  is  lost.  We  see  the  princely 
"hat"  borne  by  a  gentleman  of  worship  "right 
solemnly";  his  mule  with  scarlet  pillion  and  gilt 
stirrups;  his  cross-bearers  on  great  horses;  his 
train  of  noblemen  and  chivalry;  and  his  four  foot- 
men, bearing  burnished  pole-axes  that  catch 
the  sun.  And  so  the  king's  favourite  rides  to 
the  door  of  Westminster  Hall.  No  limner,  in  the 
monastic  shade,  hung  more  fondly  over  his  illumi- 
nated saint,  than  the  gentleman-usher  of  Wolsey 
upon  the  lineaments  of  his  Cardinal.  And  sweet 
Lucy  Hutchinson  bids  us  not  to  forget  the  biog- 
raphy of  affection. 

Whether  much  or  little  be  known  of  great  men, 
no  secrets  should  be  kept,  nor  false  things  be  told. 
Biography  is  useless  which  is  not  true.  Let  the 
weaknesses  of  character  be  preserved,  however 
insignificant  or  humbling.  The  jest-book  of 
Tacitus,  the  medicated  drinks  of  Bacon,  the  ex- 
tempore rhymes  of  Cheselden,  the  preparatory 
violin  of  Bourdaloue,  and  the  fancy-lighting  dam- 
sons of  Dryden,  have  their  place  and  value.  They 


i82         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

are  the  errata  of  genius,  and  clear  up  the  text.  A 
French  mathematician  had  pleasant  doubts  con- 
cerning the  animal  wants  of  Newton,  and  was 
disposed  to  regard  him  as  an  intellectual  being,  in 
whom  the  mind's  flame  had  absorbed  each  grosser 
particle.  It  is  a  precipitous  fall  from  dividing  a 
ray  of  light,  or  writing  Comus,  to  weariness  and 
dinner.  But  biography  admonishes  pride,  when 
it  displays  Salmasius,  the  champion  of  kings, 
shivering  under  the  eye  and  scourge  of  his  wife; 
or  stops  us  at  the  door  of  Milton's  academy,  to 
hear  the  scream  and  the  ferule.  It  steals  on  the 
poet  and  the  premier  unawares — Cowley  in  dress- 
ing-gown and  slippers,  and  Cecil  with  his  Treas- 
urer's robe  on  the  chair. 

The  works  of  an  author  are  not  always  evidence 
for  the  biographer,  because  talent  has  a  profes- 
sional temper  which  it  manifests  in  type,  or  col- 
ours. Watteau  was  only  gay  in  a  landscape,  and 
Young  was  cheerful  without  his  pen.  A  delicate 
judgment  distinguishes  the  natural  from  the  artis- 
tic frame  of  thought ;  and  in  numberless  instances 
the  book  or  the  picture  is  a  commentary  on  the 
mind  that  produced  it,  and  corrects  a  false  opinion 
of  character  and  endowments.  Walton  imagined 
Hooker  to  have  been  simple  and  childlike  in 


worldly  affairs;  whereas  the  Polity  shows  an 
acute  observer  of  mankind,  and  a  vein  of  strong 
and  quiet  humour  flowing  through  the  learned 
argument. 

When  a  man  relates  his  own  life,  we  call  it  an 
autobiography.  These  portraits  may  be  capti- 
vating, but  can  seldom  be  trusted.  The  composer 
unconsciously,  or  by  design,  softens  the  harsh  fea- 
ture, or  an  unpleasing  expression.  His  ideal  of 
excellence  answers  the  purposes  of  a  painter's  lay- 
figure.  He  disposes  and  dresses  it  in  favourable 
lights  and  rich  draperies.  Such  a  person  resem- 
bles Prior  giving  his  picture  to  St.  John's  in  a 
brocaded  suit.  A  vice,  or  a  bad  custom,  strongly 
marked  and  decided,  is  shaded  off  into  a  neutral 
tint.  How  amusing  is  Clarendon's  vindication 
of  his  appetite,  when,  speaking  in  the  third  person, 
he  says:  " He  indulged  his  palate  very  much,  and 
even  took  some  delight  in  eating  and  drinking, 
but  without  any  approach  to  luxury."  In 
Browne's  singular  piece  of  mind-painting,  the 
same  delusion  is  conspicuous,  and  throws  a  doubt- 
fulness over  the  whole.  It  is  the  physician's  like- 
ness drawn  by  himself,  and  presented  to  posterity. 
The  mightier  the  writer,  the  more  his  tale  will  be 
suspected.  It  was  hinted  by  Caesar's  enemies 


i84         pleasures  of  OLiterature 

that  his  Commentaries,  which  are  a  chapter  of 
autobiography,  would  have  been  longer  if  he  had 
inserted  his  defeats. 

"To  converse  with  historians,"  was  a  remark 
of  Bolingbroke,  "is  to  keep  good  company;  many 
of  them  were  excellent  men,  and  those  who  were 
not  such,  have  taken  care  to  appear  so  in  their 
writings."  Look  at  Sallust  drawn  by  himself, 
and  compare  the  portrait  with  that  which  his  con- 
temporaries painted.  The  statesman,  whose 
delicate  conscience  shrank  from  the  suspicion  of 
fraud,  was  expelled  the  Senate  for  personal  de- 
pravity; and  the  stern  advocate  of  justice  was 
known  to  have  adorned  his  palace  with  the  plun- 
der of  his  grinding  government  in  Numidia.  The 
expulsion  has  been  questioned,  but  the  African 
atrocities  are  acknowledged.  It  is  a  hard  task  to 
keep  the  eyes  clear,  when  the  artist  colours  and 
lights  the  transparency,  and  puts  his  figure  grace- 
fully in  the  centre. 

Notwithstanding  its  defects,  personal  narrative 
is  always  entertaining.  No  style  admits  so  many 
trifles;  moreover,  self-describers  are  generally  on 
good  terms  with  themselves,  and  amuse  us,  in 
spite  of  our  contempt.  To  this  class  belongs 
Colley  Gibber's  Apology,  which  is  the  elaborate 


Distort— JBfograpbs  185 

miniature  of  a  gossip.  Cellini's  mood  is  higher 
and  darker.  He  opens  his  mind  to  the  public 
gaze,  and  records  with  imperturbable  tranquillity 
the  symptoms  of  its  disease  and  its  health.  We 
see  him  in  every  posture  of  debasement;  aban- 
doned, and  superstitious;  a  scorner  of  the  ignor- 
ant, and  a  believer  in  magic;  passing,  by  one 
step,  from  a  brutal  insult  to  a  religious  sonnet, 
and  fighting  a  duel  with  his  eye  upon  Providence. 
The  scholar's  story  is  told  by  Huet,  Bishop  of 
avranches.  The  order  never  had  an  able  repre- 
sentative. Of  noble  descent,  he  lost  his  parents 
in  childhood,  and  fought  his  way  to  learning 
through  all  the  ingenuity  of  persecution.  His 
schoolfellows  stole  his  books,  tore  his  papers,  or 
wetted  them  until  the  ink  ran.  During  play- 
time they  barred  up  his  door;  to  enjoy  a  quiet 
hour  of  study  he  rose  with  the  sun,  while  his  tor- 
mentors were  asleep,  or  hid  himself  in  the  thick 
shade  of  the  wood.  But  his  efforts  were  unsuc- 
cessful. His  companions  hunted  the  recluse 
among  the  bushes,  and  drove  him  from  his  con- 
cealment. At  length  he  became  his  own  master, 
and  the  hill  of  knowledge  and  fame  was  rapidly 
climbed.  From  the  age  of  twenty  almost  up  to 
ninety  years,  he  pursued  his  studies  with  a  vigour 


i86         pleasures  of  literature 

that  no  labour  could  subdue.  Langour  was  un- 
known to  his  iron  nerves.  After  six  or  seven 
hours  spent  in  mental  toil,  he  cheerfully  closed 
his  books,  singing  to  himself,  and  ready  and  eager 
for  a  new  encounter. 

We  owe  these  slighter  touches  of  self-portraiture 
to  the  form  of  composition  which  Huet  selected. 
A  grave  historian  would  have  hesitated  to  relate 
the  prodigies  of  fencing,  jumping,  and  muscular 
strength  which  he  appears  to  have  esteemed,  as 
Johnson  exulted  in  his  "seat"  after  hounds.  But 
as  the  individual  record  of  perseverance  and 
learning,  the  story  of  Huet  is  invaluable.  What 
age  will  behold  another  scholar  to  whom  astron- 
omy and  Greek  were  equally  easy?  who  dissected 
with  his  own  hand  three  hundred  eyes,  and  edited 
the  Delphin  Classics  ? 

Occasionally  a  poet  weaves  into  his  verse  the 
experiences  and  the  delights  of  his  early  or  later 
life.  Few  threads  give  more  beauty  to  the  web. 
The  first  canto  of  the  Minstrel  is  an  interesting 
example,  and  shows  how  the  heart  of  Beattie 
throbs  in  the  breast  of  Edwin;  while  the  grassy 
turf, 

"  With  here  and  there  a  violet  bestrewn," 
the  woody  glen,  the  murmuring  brook,  the  boughs 


Distort— JBfograpbs  187 

rustled  by  the  owl,  the  breezy  down,  and  the  misty 
hill  clearing  before  the  sun — are  only  so  many 
reflections  of  Laurencekirk,  and  the  lonely  hamlet 
of  Fordoun.  Collins  resembles  Beattie.  Each 
ode  is  an  episode  of  his  inner  life  displayed  in  col- 
ours. When  the  poet  speaks  without  conceal- 
ment in  his  own  person,  the  biographical  surprise 
is  still  more  grateful.  Cowper  illustrates  the 
reality,  as  Beattie  shows  the  allegory.  Who  does 
noc  love  his  remembered  walk 

"  Ankle-deep  in  moss  and  flowery  thyme?" 

or  the  confession  of  his  impatience,  in  the  winter 
evenings,  to  open  the  "folio  of  four  pages,"  which 

"  The  herald  of  a  noisy  world, 

With  spattered  boots,  strapped  waist,  and  frozen  locks, 
News  from  all  nations  lumbering  at  his  back," 

had  just  dropped  at  the  inn-door.  And  Akenside 
wrote  few  passages  so  tender  and  pleasing  as  the 
lines,  in  which  he  throws  a  backward  glance  of 
pensive  regret,  upon  the  youthful  hours  passed  at 
Morpeth : 

"  O  ye  Northumbrian  shades,  which  overlook 
The  rocky  pavement  and  the  mossy  falls 
Of  solitary  Wensbeck's  limpid  stream, 
How  gladly  I  recall  your  well-known  seats, 
Beloved  of  old;  and  that  delightful  time, 


i88         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

When  all  alone,  for  many  a  summer's  day, 
I  wandered  through  your  calm  recesses,  led 
In  silence,  by  some  powerful  hand  unseen." 

In  our  day,  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth  has  carried 
the  biographical  style  to  its  utmost  boundary. 

Sometimes  autobiography  takes  the  tone  of 
confessions,  as  in  the  penitential  gloom  of 
Augustine,  and  the  melodrama  of  Rousseau.  Fre- 
quently it  flows  into  the  short  entries  of  the  jour- 
nal. The  Diary  of  Pepys  is  the  whole  inner  man 
under  a  microscope.  He  compels  us  to  despise 
him,  eating  "in  silver  plates,"  or  "driving  in  his 
own  coach  through  Hyde  Park,"  with  his  "new 
liveries  of  serge,  and  the  horses'  manes  and  tails 
tied  with  red  ribbons."  To  be  sure  the  good  gen- 
tleman wrote  in  cipher;  but  did  he  not,  when  his 
eyes  failed  him,  resolve  to  have  the  journal  kept 
by  his  people  in  long-hand  ? 

Letters  are  acknowledged  memoirs  of  Self. 
Horace  Walpole's  correspondence  inlays  his  mind 
in  mosaic.  The  epistolary  style  is  always  arti- 
ficial. The  opening  of  the  heart  to  a  friend  is  one 
of  the  fables  of  the  Golden  Age.  Even  Cowper  had 
a  tinge  for  his  cousin.  What  a  despiser  of  verses 
was  Pope  by  the  Post!  But  the  frozen  house- 
keeper of  Lord  Oxford  would  have  told  a  different 


Ifoiston?— iJBioQrapbp  189 

story  when,  in  one  winter  night  of  the  terrible 
"Forty,"  she  answered  the  impatient  poet's 
fourth  bell  for  a  sheet  of  paper. 

From  the  lessons  of  biography  four  may  be 
chosen.  It  suggests  a  comparison  between  the 
difficulties  of  earlier  and  later  readers : 

"  On  shelf  of  deal,  beside  the  cuckoo-clock, 
Of  cottage-reading  rests  the  chosen  stock," 

which  might  have  bewildered  by  its  luxury  a 
divine  of  1300.  The  Greek  sage  had  few  aids. 
Plato  devoted  three  hundred  pounds  to  the  pur- 
chase of  three  books  of  a  distinguished  Pythago- 
rean; and  Aristotle  invested  twice  that  sum  in  the 
small  library  of  a  deceased  philosopher.  Jerome 
nearly  ruined  himself  to  procure  the  works  of  Ori- 
gen ;  and  Leo  bartered  five  hundred  pieces  of  gold 
for  five  books  of  Tacitus.  The  biographer  may 
moralise  on  the  pen  he  holds.  Petrarch  being  at 
Liege,  in  the  earlier  half  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  anxious  to  copy  two  speeches  of  Cicero,  with 
difficulty  obtained  a  few  drops  of  ink  as  yellow 
as  saffron. 

Biography  cheers  merit  when  its  hopes  are 
drooping.  It  leads  the  student  down  a  gallery 
of  portraits,  and  gives  the  comforting  or  warning 
history  of  each.  It  shows  Jackson  working  on  his 


1 9o          HMeasures  of  ^Literature 

father's  shop-board,  and  cherishing  a  love  for  art 
by  a  visit  to  Castle  Howard;  Richardson,  a  print- 
er's apprentice,  stealing  an  hour  from  sleep  to 
improve  his  mind,  and  scrupulously  buying  his 
own  candle,  that  his  master  might  not  be  de- 
frauded; or  the  Chinese  scholar  Morrison,  labour- 
ing at  his  trade  of  a  last  and  boot  maker,  and  keep- 
ing his  lamp  from  blowing  out  with  a  volume  of 
Matthew  Henry's  Commentary. 

Occasionally  one  incident  in  the  life  of  a  re- 
markable person  contains  the  most  profitable 
instruction.  Prior,  on  the  death  of  his  father, 
was  sent  to  Westminster  School,  which  he  left  to 
assist  his  uncle,  a  vintner  at  Charing  Cross.  He 
remembered  Busby,  and  made  Horace  the  com- 
panion of  his  leisure.  The  Latin  poet  was  to  be 
the  key  of  his  fortunes.  The  Rummer  Tavern 
was  the  club  of  the  nobility,  and  numbered 
among  its  visitors  the  celebrated  Lord  Dorset, 
to  whom  Dryden  addressed  his  Essay  on  Dramatic 
Poesy,  and  who,  before  he  grew  fat  and  nervous, 
was  the  gayest  converser  of  that  sparkling  age. 
Upon  one  occasion  he  found  the  vintner's  nephew 
reading  Horace.  A  different  version  of  the  story 
is  given,  but  with  the  same  result.  He  expressed 
his  interest  in  the  young  man's  welfare,  and  under- 


—  3Bfo0rapb£  191 


took  the  care  of  his  education.  Cambridge  air 
ripened  his  powers.  He  rose  to  political  renown, 
maintained  at  Versailles  his  reputation  for  wit, 
and  returning  to  England  drew  from  Swift  the 
announcement,  "  Prior  is  come  over  from  France 
for  a  few  days  ;  Stocks  rise  at  his  coming." 

Biography  turns  our  eyes  from  the  present  to 
the  future.  In  life,  Gorgias  may  be  more  ap- 
plauded than  Plato,  and  Salieri  snatch  the  reward 
from  Mozart.  Years  bring  the  change  and  the 
recompense.  The  statue  follows  the  hemlock  of 
Phocion  ;  and  the  chair  of  Boccaccio  is  raised  over 
the  ashes  of  Dante.  A  picture,  for  which  Wilkie, 
in  his  early  London  life,  received  fifteen  guineas, 
was  recently  sold  for  eight  hundred.  Biography 
is  the  application  of  history  to  the  heart,  and  its 
finest  fruit  is  patience.  He  who  strives  to  make 
himself  different  from  other  men  by  much  reading 
is  justly  said  to  gain  this  advantage,  that  in  ill 
fortune  he  has  something  left  of  entertainment 
and  comfort. 

The  grandest  lesson  of  biography  is  the  need  of 
moral  and  religious  principle.  This  is  the  burden 
of  all  its  music.  Stop  for  a  moment  before  that 
youthful  face,  which  shoots  such  a  fitful  bright- 
ness from  its  proud,  visionary  eyes.  It  is  the 


1 92         pleasures  ot  ^literature 

portrait  of  Chatterton.  Begin  with  his  childhood. 
At  six  years  of  age  he  did  not  know  A ;  he  spent 
the  same  number  of  months  in  reaching  P.  Pri- 
or's plan  of  alluring  the  scholar  with  gingerbread 
letters,  to  be  eaten  as  they  are  learned,  might  have 
failed.  Suddenly  a  spark  dropped  on  the  cold 
mind.  His  mother  tore  up  an  old  music-book  for 
waste  paper,  and  the  painted  capitals  caught  his 
eye.  She  said  that  he  fell  in  love  with  the  manu- 
script. A  black-letter  Bible  completed  the  con- 
quest of  the  dunce.  He  awoke  like  the  giant, 
devouring  books  with  unsatisfied  hunger. 

His  temptation  grew  with  his  intellect.  A 
manufacturer  requested  him  to  choose  a  device, 
or  inscription,  for  a  cup.  "  Paint  me,"  answered 
the  boy,  "  an  angel  with  wings  and  a  trumpet,  to 
trumpet  my  name  over  the  world."  It  was  Mil- 
ton's daring  without  his  prayer.  The  tempter  of 
Chatterton  was  pride.  One  of  his  latest  letters  is 
still  preserved,  in  which  the  terrible  workings  of 
an  ungoverned  spirit  is  shown  by  the  emphasis  of 
his  pen.  "It  is  my  PRIDE,  my  native,  uncon- 
querable pride,  that  plunges  me  into  distraction. 
You  must  know  that  nineteen  twentieths  of  my 
composition  is  pride.  I  must  either  live  a  slave, 
or  a  servant — to  have  no  will  of  my  own,  no  senti- 


•fcfstorg— JSiograpbs  193 

ments  of  my  own,  which  I  may  freely  declare  as 
such — or  DIE." 

It  is  quite  conceivable  that  a  boy-genius,  over- 
flowing with  mirthful  strength,  might  banter  a 
pompous  pewterer  by  a  Norman  pedigree,  or  a 
dull  topographer  with  a  castle  in  the  clouds.  But 
Chatterton  had  a  baser  motive.  The  pride  that 
enslaved  his  soul  at  Bristol,  drove  him  to  London. 
Its  bondage  became  fiercer.  One  after  another 
his  home-thoughts  and  recollections  are  whirled 
away,  like  spring  blossoms  in  a  hurricane.  The 
black-letter  Bible  is  lost  in  shadow.  Mother,  and 
sisters,  and  the  gifts  of  love,  disappear.  Only 
pride  remains.  John  Foster  has  some  striking  and 
affecting  observations  on  the  last  days  of  Chat- 
terton: "The  ambition,  flushed  with  confidence, 
had  turned  to  insupportable  mortification;  the 
last  expedient  was  brought,  as  by  some  demon, 
directly  before  him;  and  so  eventful,  wayward, 
ill-disciplined,  unhonoured,  but  eminently  capable 
a  life  was  terminated  at  a  little  short  of  the  age  of 
eighteen ;  of  which  the  last  few  months  must  have 
hurried  him  through  a  violent  tumult  of  the  pas- 
sions. And  all  this  anarchy  of  emotions,  the 
action  and  re-action  of  pride,  exultation,  resent- 
ment, and  despair,  the  confusion,  and  conflict  of 
13 


i94         pleasures  of  Xiterature 

all  the  passions,  to  close  in  the  self-destruction  of 
their  slave  and  victim !"  We  see  the  " marvellous 
boy"  for  the  last  time  retire  to  his  dreary  cham- 
ber, with  the  dreadful  remedy  for  hunger  and 
pride;  we  watch  him  take  it  up  and  lay  it  down 
again,  "with  a  shuddering  sensation,  for  the 
power  of  death  is  there."  He  collects  his  frag- 
ments of  verse  and  prose;  tears  them  in  pieces; 
mingles  the  poison;  swallows  it,  and  plunges  over 
the  ghastly  precipice  in  sullen,  tempestuous, 
magnificent  despair. 

O  words  to  be  graven  in  gold ! 

"Woe  be  to  the  youthful  poet  who  sets  out  upon 
his  pilgrimage  to  the  Temple  of  Fame,  with  no- 
thing but  hope  for  his  viaticum!  There  is  the 
Slough  of  Despond,  and  the  Hill  of  Difficulty, 
and  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death  upon  the 
Way." 


XXII 
LITERATURE  OF  THE  PULPIT 

WHEN  Beauclerk's  books  were  sold,  Wilkes 
expressed  his  astonishment  at  finding  so 
large  a  collection  of  sermons  in  the  library  of  a 
fashionable  scholar.  Johnson  said,  "Why,  sir, 
you  are  to  remember  that  sermons  make  a  con- 
siderable branch  of  English  literature."  The 
caution  might  be  widely  spread.  In  every  Christ- 
ian land  the  learned  mind  has  poured  its  choicest 
gifts  into  theology.  Chrysostom  warms  the 
fourth  century  like  a  sun.  The  discourses  of  St. 
Bernard  are  shining  lights  in  dark  ages.  Dante, 
whom  he  preceded  by  more  than  a  hundred  years, 
caught  no  views  of  Paradise  from  the  mountain- 
top  more  fruitful  or  serene.  If  we  turn  our  eyes 
to  France,  Bossuet  is  her  grandest  poet,  and 
Pascal  eclipses  Montesquieu. 

The  gloomy  recess  of  an  ecclesiastical  library  is 
like  a  harbour,  into  which  a  far-travelling  curios- 
ity has  sailed  with  its  freight,  and  cast  anchor. 
The  ponderous  tomes  are  bales  of  the  mind's  mer- 
chandise. Odours  of  distant  countries  steal  from 
195 


196          pleasures  of  %iteratiu*e 

the  red  leaves,  the  swelling  ridges  of  vellum,  and 
the  titles  in  tarnished  gold.  Davenant's  descrip- 
tion of  their  covers  sprinkled  with  dust,  and  long 
streets  of  spiders'  webs,  is  striking  as  the  lesson  it 
gives  is  significant. 

These  are  the  controversies  and  the  specula- 
tions of  the  Schoolmen,  and  would  scarcely  be 
found  on  the  shelves  of  Beauclerk.  But  the  elder 
rhetoric,  which  had  taken  the  shape  of  exhorta- 
tion, abounds  in  elements  of  interest  and  materials 
of  deep  or  bright  thinking,  which  the  polite  reader 
may  separate  from  the  text.  Each  volume  is  a 
commonplace  book  of  brilliant  sayings  and  erudite 
allusions;  a  treasure-house  of  products  and  an- 
tiquities from  every  climate  and  age  of  intellect. 
Here  are  gathered,  without  much  attempt  at  order 
or  classification,  battered  armour  of  Homeric 
chiefs,  dry  chips  of  Seneca,  poisoned  arrows  of 
Juvenal,  magical  flutes  of  Apuleius,  grotesque 
words  coined  by  that  great  minter,  Tertullian, 
and  spiritual  clothing  of  wrought  gold  from  Chrys- 
ostom.  He  who  seeks  for  amusement  finds  it  in 
old  sermons.  The  slightest  circumstances  of  an- 
cient and  modern  life  are  preserved;  from  the 
vermilion  cord  with  which  the  public  officer  pur- 
sued and  marked  the  Athenians  who  neglected 


^Literature  of  tbe  jpulpft         197 

the  Assemblies,  to  the  first  appearance  of  the 
umbrella  in  London. 

The  preachers  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  are  its  familiar  historians.  Latimer 
opens  the  royal  kitchen.  Andrewes  leads  com- 
mon life  into  the  sun.  We  learn  from  Donne  how 
street-begging  had  become  a  trade  in  1625.  Par- 
ents educated  their  children  for  it,  and  expert 
professors  of  the  art  received  apprentices,  whom 
they  perfected  in  making  a  face  and  a  story.  Per- 
haps the  English  preacher  caught  this  habit  of 
sketching  manners  from  Chrysostom,  in  whose 
homilies  we  obtain  so  many  lively  views  of  Con- 
stantinople and  Antioch;  who,  in  enforcing  the 
study  of  the  Scriptures,  dissuades  parents  from 
hanging  the  Gospels  round  the  neck  of  a  child,  or 
near  the  bed,  as  a  charm;  and  condemns  the  rich 
for  using  dice  every  day,  and  keeping  their  sump- 
tuous Bibles  shut  up  in  the  cases. 

During  two  hundred  years,  the  sermon  shaped 
and  nourished  the  English  mind.  Greek  and 
Latin  fountains  of  philosophy  and  grace  flowed 
into  poetry  from  the  pulpit.  Shakespeare  might 
have  picked  up  crumbs  of  Plato  and  Euripides 
from  the  orator  of  Paul's  Cross.  The  Preacher 
had  a  religious  and  instructive  character.  He 


198         {pleasures  of  ^literature 

entertained  that  he  might  improve  the  hearer. 
He  unfolded  the  grandeur  of  a  prophecy,  or  the 
comfort  of  an  epistle,  and  alarmed  the  conscience, 
or  bound  up  a  wounded  heart ;  he  brought  tidings 
of  foreign  learning  to  the  scholar,  of  discoveries  to 
the  naturalist,  and  of  manners  to  the  people;  and 
thus  he  won  the  ears  of  the  thoughtful,  the  in- 
quisitive, and  the  idle. 

The  sermon  reflected  the  research,  the  feelings, 
and  the  experience  of  the  speaker.  The  reading 
of  a  week  slipped  into  a  parenthesis.  If  Donne 
sets  forth  the  praises  of  devout  women  in  the 
morning  of  Christianity,  he  remembers  a  Vene- 
tian story  about  the  matrons  who  were  sent  to 
propitiate  an  empress.  In  showing  that  sin  sepa- 
rates a  man  from  God,  he  tells  the  congregation 
of  his  own  visit  to  Aix-la-Chapelle  for  the  sake  of 
the  baths,  and  how  the  house  he  lodged  in — big 
enough  for  a  small  parish — was  occupied  by 
swarms  of  Anabaptists,  who  agreed  in  nothing  but 
keeping  apart  from  one  another;  the  father  ex- 
communicating the  son  on  the  third  floor,  and  the 
uncle  his  nephew  in  the  attic. 

Amusement  is  only  the  accident  of  our  early 
eloquence.  In  devotion,  learning,  argument,  and 
imagination,  it  is  unequalled.  It  comes  warm 


Xiterature  of  tbe  pulpit 


199 


from  the  Bible.  The  irradiated  mind  shoots  a 
glory  into  the  commonest  word,  and  Christian 
duties  are  drawn  with  so  much  patience  of  love 
and  embellishment,  that  later  pens  seem  to  pro- 
duce faint  and  imperfect  copies.  Mr.  Keble  illus- 
trates one  of  his  poems  by  a  passage  from  Miller's 
Bampton  Lectures;  but  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
comparison  had  been  employed  two  centuries  be- 
fore by  Donne,  and  at  a  later  period  by  Seed.  Its 
last  appearance  is  in  a  discourse  of  Mr.  Melvill : 

THE  EYE  OF  THE  PORTRAIT 


MILLER 

''The  point  worthy  of 
observation  is,  to  note  how 
a  book  of  the  description  and 
compass  which  we  have  re- 
presented Scripture  to  be, 
possesses  this  versatility  of 
power:  this  eye,  like  that  of 
a  portrait,  uniformly  fixed  up- 
on us,  turn  where  we  will." 
SEED 

"  When  the  discourse  is 
directed  to  us,  lending  a 
favourable  attention,  and 
making  pertinent  replies;  like 
a  fine  picture  which  seems 
to  fix  an  eye  upon,  and  direct 
its  views  to  each  person  in 
the  room,  who  looks  upon  it, 
and  eyes  it  attentively." 


DONNE 

"  Be,  therefore,  no  stranger 
to  this  face  ;  see  Him  here 
that  you  may  know  Him, 
and  He  you  there  ;  and  then, 
as  a  picture  looks  upon  him 
who  looks  upon  it,  God,  up- 
on whom  thou  keepest  thine 
eye,  will  keep  His  eye  upon 
thee." 

MELVILL 

"  Such  is  your  nature  that, 
without  constant  vigilance, 
the  direction  may  be  gradu- 
ally changed,  and  yet  appear 
to  you  the  same,  even  as  the 
eyes  of  a  well-drawn  portrait 
follow  you  as  you  move,  and 
so  might  persuade  you  that 
you  had  not  moved  at  all." 


2OO 


pleasures  of  Xfterature 


The  thought,  indeed,  may  be  found  in  a  lighter 
page.  When  Colonel  Everard  revisited  the  parlour 
in  Woodstock  Lodge,  where  the  old  portrait  of  Vic- 
tor Lee  was  suspended,  "he  remembered  how  .  .  . 
when  left  alone  in  the  apartment, the  searching  eye 
of  the  old  warrior  seemed  always  bent  upon  bis,  in 
whatever  part  of  the  room  he  placed  bimself." 

Read  one  more  example  from  a  preacher  of 
the  Elizabethan  age,  and  of  the  present : 
OLD  CHURCHES 


HENRY  SMITH 

"This  is  our  life;  while  we 
enjoy  it,  we  lose  it  like  the 
sun,  which  flies  swifter  than 
the  arrow,  and  yet  no  man 
perceives  that  it  moves.  He 
which  lasted  900  years  could 
not  hold  out  one  hour  longer; 
and  what  is  he  now  more 
than  a  child  that  lived  but  a 
year  ?  Where  are  they  which 
founded  this  goodly  city? 
.  which  possessed  these  fair 
houses,  .and  walked  in  these 
pleasant  fields  ;  which  entered 
these  stately  temples;  which 
kneeled  in  these  seats  ;  which 
preached  out  of  this  place  but 
thirty  years  ago  ?  Is  not  earth 
turned  to  earth,  and  shall  not 
our  sun  set  like  theirs  when 
the  night  comes  ?  " 


BRADLEY 

"  Even  the  works  of  our 
own  hands  remain  much 
longer  than  we.  The  pyra- 
mids of  Egypt  have  defied 
the  attacks  of  3000  years, 
while  their  builders  sank,  per- 
haps, under  the  burden  of 
fourscore.  Our  houses  stand 
long  after  their  transient  pro- 
prietors are  gone,  and  their 
names  forgotten.  Where  is 
now  the  head  that  planned, 
and  the  hand  which  built  this 
house  of  God?  They  were 
all  reduced  to  ashes  500  years 
ago.  The  very  seats  we  sit 
on  have  borne  generations 
before  they  bore  us,  and  will 
probably  bear  many  after  us. 
Th  remainsof  those  who  once 
occupied  the  places  we  now 
fill  are  underneath  our  feet." 


2OI 


I  do  not  accuse  the  moderns  of  wilfully  de- 
frauding the  ancients.  The  resemblances  may 
be  unintentional.  The  object  of  the  parallel  is  to 
urge  the  diligent  study  of  our  ancestors  in  divinity. 
The  antique  legend,  which  gave  the  sweetest  song 
to  nightingales  that  built  their  nests  near  the  tomb 
of  Orpheus,  may  have  a  moral  for  prose. 

The  elaborateness  of  the  early  style  was  not 
felt  to  be  wearisome.  Hearers  and  readers  in 
1600  were  seldom  in  a  hurry.  But  now  and  then 
rambling  through  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and 
James,  or  of  the  first  and  second  Charles,  we  over- 
take a  loitering  expounder,  who  has  a  large  gift 
of  tediousness,  and  might  have  assisted  the  Ger- 
man professor  in  his  course  of  lectures  upon  the 
first  chapter  of  Isaiah,  which  extended  over 
twenty  years,  and  was  left  unfinished.  In  the 
true  masters  of  theological  eloquence,  however, 
the  wandering  and  scattered  utterance  had,  gen- 
erally, intention  and  method.  They  spread  out 
their  thoughts  and  images,  as  a  skilful  general 
invests  a  strong  fortress  with  troops;  and  threw 
reasoning  into  a  circle,  to  besiege  a  hostile  argu- 
ment and  cut  off  escape.  Milton's  definition  is 
realised.  The  words  in  "well-ordered  files  fall 
aptly  into  their  places."  Similes  and  metaphors 


202         pleasures  ot  ^Literature 

are  rarely  ornamental  figures,  mere  combatants 
on  a  rhetorical  parade,  with  music  and  standards 
for  show.  They  carry  weapons,  and  are  ready 
for  action. 

The  epoch  of  elegance  had  not  arrived,  and  the 
eye  of  taste  discovers  many  violations  of  its  laws ; 
but  the  most  objectionable  fault  is  the  mixture  of 
spiritual  and  worldly  things;  as  in  continental 
cities  a  shop  is  encrusted  on  a  cathedral.  South 
is  a  notable  offender.  He  writes  a  political  note 
on  a  Gospel,  and  couples  Cromwell  and  Peter  in 
a  sentence.  Much  of  this  familiarity  may  be 
traced  to  the  Miracle-play,  which  had  left  a  pop- 
ular impression  behind  it.  Statesmen  and  Pre- 
lates were  scarcely  alive  to  the  discord:  in  the 
first  edition  of  the  Bishops'  Bible  the  portrait  of 
Leicester  was  prefixed  to  Joshua;  and,  in  1754, 
the  arms  of  the  Primate  Parker  replaced  Burleigh 
as  a  decoration  of  the  Psalms. 

In  whatever  light  we  examine  it,  the  sermon  of 
the  seventeenth  century  continues  to  be  a  problem 
of  literature.  It  flourished  in  ignorance  and 
withered  under  education.  The  "plain"  manner 
came  in  with  the  national  school.  Day  by  day, 
the  jewels  of  the  breastplate  were  more  clouded, 
and  the  superb  scenery  of  truth  was  buried  deeper 


Xiterature  of  tbe  pulpit         203 

in  snow.  The  public  mind  has  taken  the  tone  of 
its  teachers.  Sublimity  is  darkness,  and  the  glow 
of  the  prophet  is  a  poetical  turn.  Imagine  Donne 
re-appearing  in  the  chapel  of  Lincoln's  Inn  with 
one  of  the  discourses  which  he  delivered  to  the 
society  of  1618.  Let  him  exhibit,  in  all  its  ful- 
ness, that  manifold  style  which  was  the  delight  of 
his  friends  and  of  the  crowd;  the  imperial  logic, 
the  gorgeous  perspective  of  imagery,  the  poem  in 
a  word,  the  melting  pathos,  the  rapturous  piety, 
and  the  splendour  of  language  that  flowed  over 
the  argument  and  adorned  it,  like  a  crimson  man- 
tle upon  armour.  Picture  the  uneasy  rustle  of 
the  benchers,  and  the  bewilderment  of  the  verger. 
Why  should  "sleep"  and  "sermon"  be  ac- 
cepted as  synonyms  by  the  vulgar?  A  judge 
and  a  master  recommended  Demosthenes  to  the 
village  preacher.  Surely,  any  style  is  better  than 
that  which  is  plain  in  the  absence  of  expression, 
and  simple  in  having  no  thoughts  to  convey.  Is 
it  surprising  if  the  dead  masses  slumber  under 
such  appeals  ?  The  fervour  of  the  old  eloquence 
is  needed  to  strike  heat  into  the  sinner.  His  cure 
is  to  be  wrought  by  no  servile  hand.  Gehazi 
might  have  laid  Elisha's  staff  for  ever  upon  the 
Shunammite's  child.  The  eyes  open  only  to  the 


204         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

prophet's  call.  The  kindled  lips  of  inspired  gen- 
ius must  breathe  over  the  benumbed  soul  before 
trie  colour  of  health  will  return,  the  baptismal 
flame  be  fanned  into  warmth,  and  the  son  of  the 
church  be  delivered  to  his  mother. 


XXIII 
PHILOSOPHY  AND  ITS  DELIGHTS 

IT  was  a  remark  of  Bacon,  that  knowledge  re- 
sembles a  tree  which  runs  straight  for  some 
time,  and  then  parts  itself  into  branches.  Of 
these,  philosophy  is  one  of  the  most  verdurous, 
and  throws  the  broadest  shadow;  whether  we 
regard  it  in  relation  to  spiritual  truth,  and  call  it 
divine,  or  to  the  phenomena  of  the  visible  world, 
and  distinguish  it  as  natural,  or  to  the  feelings 
and  powers  of  men,  and  show  its  restricted  appli- 
cation by  the  title  of  human,  or  moral. 

Philosophy  comes  into  this  discourse  under  its 
single  aspect  of  lighting  and  adorning  the 
thoughts.  It  is  only  wisdom,  with  the  girdle  of 
beauty,  that  belongs  to  our  subject.  Speculative 
theories  are  left  in  their  barren  splendour.  Ingen- 
ious researches,  which  obtain  the  name  of  meta- 
physical, offer  few  lasting  rewards,  or  give  much 
present  gratification.  "I  have  not,"  Gray  said, 
"the  eyes  of  a  cat,  so  cannot  see  in  the  dark." 
205 


206         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

Exploring  expeditions  into  the  mind  generally 
bring  back  fabulous  news  of  the  interior.  The 
perplexed  journey  is  made  by  twilight,  and  the 
dim  impressions  of  the  traveller  become  obscurer 
in  their  transmission.  He  seldom  sees  an  object 
with  sufficient  distinctness  to  describe  it.  The 
question  remains  undetermined,  if  ideas  be  in- 
born, as  one  observer  affirms,  or  fragments  of 
broken  sensations,  as  another  supposes,  or  fine 
chains  coiled  up  in  the  brain,  as  they  appeared  to 
the  inquisitive  eye  of  a  third. 

The  student,  therefore,  who  is  enamoured  of 
the  graces  of  learning,  turns  to  authors  who  enter- 
tain his  eye  and  feed  his  fancy  with  the  loveliest 
pictures  and  the  richest  fruit.  For  this  reason 
he  is  never  weary  of  reading  particular  passages 
in  Plato ;  such  as  the  allegory  which  compares  the 
soul  to  a  chariot  with  winged  horses  and  a  driver, 
and  resolves  its  purest  thoughts  into  remem- 
brances of  a  brighter  life  in  a  nobler  society.  He 
learns  a  solemn  and  almost  a  Christian  moral 
from  the  suggestion,  that  the  soul  of  a  philosopher 
will  recover  its  lost  grandeur  the  sooner,  because, 
in  a  fallen  and  dark  condition,  it  ever  tries  to 
recollect  the  things  which  higher  intelligences 
contemplate.  An  understanding,  thus  taught 


an&  its  H)eligbts      207 

and  illuminated,  finds  its  eyesight  cleared  and 
strengthened.  The  earth  on  which  it  dwells  is 
known  to  be  Eden  under  a  mist ;  in  the  common 
flower  of  the  hedge,  the  painted  clouds,  and  the 
sunshine  on  the  grass,  it  reads  intimations  of  a 
better  country — 

"  Ot  all  that  is  most  beauteous,  imaged  there 

In  happier  beauty;  more  pellucid  streams, 
An  ample  ether,  a  diviner  air, 
And  fields  invested  with  purpureal  gleams." 

Such  a  reader  is  greatly  charmed  by  the  manner 
in  which  wisdom  is  communicated.  Gilpin  com- 
pared a  true  philosophical  style  to  light  from  a 
north  window,  strong  but  clear.  The  colourless 
depth  of  the  Greek  has  the  transparent  freshness, 
without  being  cold;  and  a  ray  of  imagination 
seems  continually  to  pierce  and  warm  it.  To  the 
latest  hour  of  his  life,  Plato  polished  and  adjusted 
his  illustrations  and  argument;  in  the  significant 
commentary  of  an  early  critic,  combing  and  curl- 
ing, and  weaving  and  unweaving  his  writings  after 
a  variety  of  fashions. 

Our  own  literature  contains  many  lofty  and 
serious  views  of  the  mysteries  of  man's  nature. 
In  these  the  student  may 


2o8         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

i 

"  At  intervals  descry 

Gleams  of  the  glory,  streaks  of  flowing  light, 
Openings  of  heaven." 

Cudworth  is  studied  with  pleasure  and  profit 
for  the  frequent  majesty  of  his  sentiments;  Henry 
More,  for  the  wild  strains  of  a  tender  and  musical 
fancy;  Morris,  for  a  serious  Platonism,  brightened 
by  a  heavenly  sunshine;  and  Berkeley,  for  un- 
equalled grace  and  harmony  in  manner.  The 
system  of  Wollaston  is  mutilated  on  one  side,  but 
his  moral  dignity  and  deep  sense  of  immortality 
lend  impression  to  his  teaching.  It  is  unnecessary 
to  speak  of  Butler,  who,  in  the  walk  which  he 
chose,  is  as  incomparable  as  Hooker. 

Philosophical  studies  are  beset  by  one  peril, — a 
person  easily  brings  himself  to  think  that  he 
thinks;  and  a  smattering  of  science  encourages 
conceit.  He  is  above  his  companions.  A  hiero- 
glyphic is  a  spell.  Moreover,  the  vain  man  is 
generally  a  doubter.  It  is  a  Newton  who  sees 
himself  in  a  child  on  the  seashore,  and  his  dis- 
coveries in  the  coloured  shells.  A  little  knowledge 
leads  a  mind  from  God.  Unripe  thinkers  use 
their  learning  to  authenticate  their  doubts;  while 
unbelief  has  its  own  dogma,  more  peremptory 
than  the  inquisitor's.  Patient  meditation  brings 


aufc  its  Beligbts      209 

the  scholar  back  to  humbleness.  He  learns  that 
the  grandest  truths  appear  slowly.  They  are  like 
the  shapes  of  cloudy  light,  floating  in  the  utter- 
most loneliness  of  space;  some  the  naked  eye 
discerns,  others  a  common  glass  brings  into  view. 
But  it  was  the  enormous  reflector  of  modern  skill, 
in  the  purity  of  a  southern  atmosphere,  that  gave 
to  those  masses  of  vapour  a  form  and  a  look  of 
glory,  and  kindled  strips  of  mist  into  rays  of  ex- 
quisite lustre.  Thus,  the  cloud  of  the  weak  be- 
comes the  star-cluster  of  the  strengthened  sight. 
Many  radiant  bodies  yet  remain  in  their  majestic 
retirements.  No  glass,  however  endowed  with 
vision,  compels  these  shadows  to  come  within  its 
range,  and  to  show  their  faces.  Still  there  is  hope. 
The  discovery  of  one  star  is  the  promise  of  an- 
other. The  hand  of  science  grows  more  cunning 
every  day,  and  its  eye  endures  a  stronger  blaze. 
This  is  the  lesson  for  the  inquirer  into  the  far-off 
and  dim  things  ot  truth.  Hour  by  hour  some  eyes 
are  opened  more  and  more  by  the  Father  of 
lights,  to  behold  the  wondrous  things  of  His  law. 
Nothing  is  too  remote  or  misty  for  the  straining 
and  waiting  gaze.  The  most  awful  mysteries  seem 
to  be  drawn  nearer,  and  to  glimmer  from  behind 
the  veil. 


XXIV 

THE  STUDY  OF  LANGUAGES 

F7LEURY,  after  excepting  Latin,  Italian,  and 
Spanish,  for  general  readers,  and  Greek  and 
Hebrew  for  ecclesiastics,  includes  foreign  lan- 
guages among  the  curiosities  of  literature.  In 
English  he  found  no  advantage  to  compensate  a 
learner.  Selden  puts  the  relative  value  of  ancient 
and  modern  tongues  with  much  archness,  in  com- 
paring a  person  who  quotes  a  Dutch,  when  a  clas- 
sical author  might  be  used,  to  a  guest  leaving  a 
party  of  scholars  to  solicit  a  testimonial  from  the 
kitchen. 

The  judgment  of  Fleury  may  fairly  be  ques- 
tioned, but  his  omission  of  Oriental  languages 
will  not  be  disapproved.  These  mines  are  worked 
at  enormous  cost,  and  the  returns  are  small.  If 
Johnson's  pension  had  come  twenty  years  earlier, 
it  would  hardly  have  profited  mankind  in  sending 
him,  according  to  his  wish,  to  Constantinople  to 
learn  Arabic.  The  rarity  of  such  acquirements 

210 


ZTbe  Stuos  of  XanQuages        211 

imparts  a  fictitious  importance.  We  regard  a 
person  who  speaks  Chinese  fluently,  as  we  might 
look  at  a  traveller  accustomed  to  take  his  morning 
walk  along  the  Great  Wall.  A  shadow  from  the 
Pyramids  falls  over  Champollion. 

Languages  are  voices  of  a  nation's  mind.  The 
mountain  Greek  has  no  tone  of  the  soft  Ionic. 
The  Anglo  Saxon  casts  abroad  in  its  short,  stern, 
and  solemn  words,  the  awfulness  of  the  forests 
where  it  grew.  Italian  is  the  love-talk  of  the  Ro- 
man without  his  armour.  A  most  curious  in- 
stance of  a  language  shaped  by  climate  is  seen  in 
the  South  Sea  Islands;  and  we  are  told  that 
whole  chapters  of  the  New  Testament  contain  no 
words  ending  with  consonants,  except  the  proper 
names  of  the  original. 

Of  course  every  new  language  is  a  new  instru- 
ment of  power.  It  was  finely  said  by  Bacon,  that 
God  has  formed  the  mind  of  man  like  a  mirror, 
capable  of  receiving  the  image  of  the  whole  world, 
the  variety  of  things,  and  the  changes  of  time. 
He,  therefore,  whose  knowledge  spreads  into  the 
amplest  circle,  possesses  the  largest  glass.  Each 
added  acquirement  is  a  shade  melted  from  the 
surface.  Every  fresh  dialect  is  a  new  picture 
brought  under  the  eye.  But  no  riches  are  without 


2i2         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

inconveniences.  Reflections  of  various  objects 
overrun  and  confuse  one  another.  The  men  of 
many  tongues  corrupt  the  idioms  of  their  own 
language,  by  catching  the  accent  of  their  com- 
panions. Dryden  attributed  most  of  Cowley's 
defects  to  his  continental  associations,  and  said 
that  his  losses  at  home  out-balanced  his  gains 
from  abroad.  That  hideous  German-English, 
which  infects  our  modern  literature,  may  be 
thought  to  confirm  the  remark. 

Another  apprehension  rises.  The  time  which 
is  devoted  to  a  foreign  writer  must  obviously  be 
taken  from  a  native.  Some  sense  of  sacrifice  is 
felt  in  abandoning  the  fallen  angel  of  Milton,  with 
his  face  of  "  princely  counsel," 

"Majestic  though  in  ruins," 

for  the  demon  of  Tasso,  and  his  long  tail ;  Shake- 
speare ought  to  be  nearly  got  by  heart,  before  a 
summer  afternoon  is  spent  with  Alfieri;  and  the 
theologian  should  enjoy  very  long  days  of  study 
who  leaves  Henry  Smith  upon  the  shelf,  to  muse 
over  Segneri.  What  glorious  poetry  and  prose 
Schlegel  neglected,  while  he  read  with  lingering 
eyes  all  the  forgotten  verses  of  Boccaccio! 
The  first  duty  of  a  reader  is  to  study  the  learn- 


Ube  Stu£>£  of  ^Languages        213 

ing  and  intellect  of  his  own  country.  Our  English 
granaries  will  feed  a  long  life.  Bacon  magnified 
"letters,  which,  as  ships,  pass  through  the  vast 
sea  of  Time,"  and  spread  the  treasures  of  one  age 
over  another.  And  we  may  carry  out  his  illustra- 
tion in  the  noble  boast  of  the  poet  Young,  that 
Bacon  himself,  and  Newton,  and  Shakespeare, 
and  Milton,  have  showed  us  how  all  the  winds 
cannot  blow  a  British  ship  farther,  than  true 
genius  conveys  British  glory.  Those  heroic 
names  of  wisdom  and  fancy  go  round  the  world, 
while  every  foreign  rival  strikes  its  flag  as  they 
pass. 

Literature  has  pleasures  like  those  of  travel. 
No  landscape  preserves  its  bloom  and  colour  out 
of  its  own  light  and  air.  It  looks  languid  and 
dusty  in  a  description,  and  must  be  seen  to  be  en- 
joyed. The  remark  is  not  applicable  to  authors. 
Rarely  even  in  prose  is  the  writer's  physiognomy 
reflected.  Certainly  no  translation  of  a  true  poem 
can  retain  the  beauty.  It  is  a  landscape  trans- 
ferred to  the  wood.  Outline  and  grouping  may 
be  preserved,  but  colour  and  life  escape.  By 
what  process  of  skill  can  the  copyist  present,  in 
their  full  splendour,  the  epithets  of  St.  Paul,  the 
silvery  lights  of  Livy,  or  the  picture-words  of 


2i4         pleasures  of  Xiterature 

/Eschylus?  The  weather-stains  of  Dante  disap- 
pear in  the  modern  fabric.  The  bloom  of  Pe- 
trarch melts  under  the  touch.  The  hand  rubs 
the  polish  from  Massillon  and  Racine,  and  the 
crowded  thoughtfulness  of  Pascal  is  scattered. 

Another  obstacle  may  be  noticed  to  the  success 
of  the  carefullest  version, — a  home-feeling  gener- 
ally injures  the  truth  of  a  description.  I  am 
taught  by  the  pencil-sketch  of  Twickenham, 
which  Pope  drew  in  the  fly-leaf  of  his  Homer. 
The  trim  grass-plot  runs  up  to  the  door  of  Hector. 
The  character  of  a  poem  and  a  history  suffers 
from  the  same  cause — the  complexion  and  the 
garb  are  no  longer  national.  Cato  addresses  the 
Senate  in  a  wig,  and  /Eneas,  on  the  arm  of  Dry- 
den,  has  the  lounge  of  the  Mall. 


XXV 

DOMESTIC  INTERIORS  OF  LEARNING 

THE  Persian  poet  Saadi  framed  a  lesson  in  a 
pleasant  Apologue.  Two  friends  spent  a 
summer  day  in  a  garden  of  roses;  one  contented 
himself  with  the  colours  and  fragrance,  the  other 
gathered  the  choicest  bloom  and  carried  it  to  his 
family.  The  happy  home-life  of  genius  is  the 
moral  of  the  story.  Of  many  sons  of  learning 
it  might  be  written: 

"  Oh,  bliss,  when  all  in  circle  drawn 
About  him,  heart  and  ear  were  fed 
To  hear  him,  as  he  lay  and  read 
The  Tuscan  poets  on  the  lawn." 

We  overlook  Richardson  reading  a  chapter  of  a 
new  novel  to  a  select  circle  in  his  grotto;  and 
Sterne  never  wears  so  attractive  an  expression  as 
by  his  own  fireside,  while  his  daughter  makes  a 
fair  manuscript,  and  his  wife  is  busy  with  her 
needle.  "  I  am  scribbling  away,"  he  tells  a  friend, 
"  at  my  Tristram;  these  two  volumes  are,  I  think, 
215 


2i6         pleasures  ot  Xfterature 

the  best  I  shall  write  as  long  as  I  live.  My  Lydia 
helps  to  copy  for  me,  and  my  wife  knits  and  listens 
as  I  read  her  chapters." 

The  poetic  hearth  of  Weston,  with  the  sofa  and 
the  warm  curtains,  and  the  adventures  of  the 
traveller  by  land  or  water, 

"  by  one  made  vocal 
For  the  amusement  of  the  rest," 

recalls  the  visitor  who  put  the  rose-leaves  in  his 
bosom.  Nor  should  we  forget  Milton  inviting  a 
friend  to  waste  a  sullen  day  by  the  fire,  cheered 
by  a 

"  neat  repast 

Of  Attic  taste  with  wine,  whence  we  may  rise 
To  hear  the  lute  well  touch'd,  or  artful  voice 
Warble  immortal  notes  and  Tuscan  air." 

And  we  breathe  the  Persian's  rose  again  in  Titian's 
garden-suppers,  when  the  soft  voices  and  instru- 
ments of  Venetian  ladies  sounded  from  a  thousand 
gondolas,  gliding  past  in  the  moonlight. 

A  familiar  letter  of  Pliny  opens  a  domestic  in- 
terior of  a  scholar  seventeen  hundred  years  ago. 
He  was  stirring  with  the  dawn,  and  thinking 
gloom  favourable  to  meditation,  he  had  his 
chamber  darkened.  Such  opposite  tempers  as 


Unterfors  of  learning  217 

Malebranche,  Hobbes,  Corneille,  and  Sidney  seem 
to  have  shared  this  partiality.  The  morning  was 
Pliny's  season  of  composition.  Having  arranged 
his  subject,  he  called  his  secretary,  who  wrote 
from  his  dictation.  A  saunter  on  the  terrace,  or 
beneath  a  covered  portico,  and  a  short  carriage- 
drive,  heightened  his  enjoyment  of  a  siesta;  after- 
wards he  took  a  longer  walk,  which  he  improved 
by  repeating  a  Greek  or  Latin  speech.  Supper 
concluded  the  day  with  a  book,  music,  or  an 
interlude. 

A  graceful  example  is  seen  in  a  poet  who  bor- 
rowed Pliny's  language.  Petrarch  lived  in  the 
rose-garden.  His  was  the  day  of  the  true  scholar, 
who  found  in  Vaucluse  a  hermitage  of  fancy. 
Often  he  spent  the  hours  from  early  morning  in 
unbroken  meditation,  going  forth  to  his  work  of 
taste  until  the  evening.  At  other  times  his  hu- 
mour was  rural,  and  he  wandered  among  the  leafy 
woods  while  his  shadow  lengthened  in  the  moon- 
light. Occasionally  he  gave  himself  up  to  waking 
visions  by  the  waterside,  to  the  tranquil  idleness 
of  fishing,  or  to  the  culture  of  his  orchard.  A  dog 
was  his  watchful  companion.  It  lay  at  his  bed- 
room door,  rousing  him  by  a  sharp  rap  of  the  paw 
when  he  overslept  himself,  and  the  day  promised 


zi8         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

a  cheerful  excursion.  The  moment  the  poet  ap- 
peared, his  dog  led  the  way  to  his  familiar  haunts, 
brisk  with  joy,  and  continually  turning  its  eyes 
backward.  The  rugged  fisherman  and  his  with- 
ered wife,  who  composed  Petrarch's  domestic 
establishment,  would  have  received  small  satisfac- 
tion from  the  richest  rose-leaves  he  gathered;  but 
to  his  own  vivid  sense  of  sweetness  no  odour  was 
lost.  And  doubtless  he  had  days  of  solitary  hap- 
piness, when  the  Muse  brought  him  presents,  not 
less  delightful,  if  less  real,  than  the  Homer  which 
he  received  from  the  Byzantine  ambassador,  and 
placed  in  rapturous  admiration  by  the  side  of 
Plato. 

It  might  be  agreeable  to  look  for  versions  of 
Saadi's  Apologue  in  the  studio  of  the  artist;  to 
observe  Rubens  consecrating  his  daily  occupa- 
tions with  a  devotional  temper,  surrounded  by 
the  finest  works  of  ancient  genius,  and  nour- 
ishing his  imagination  by  passages  from  Livy, 
Virgil,  and  Plutarch,  which  an  attendant  read  to 
to  him  as  he  painted.  But  I  turn  to  portraits 
more  serious.  Jewell  rose  at  four  o'clock  to 
prayers,  and  attended  the  public  service  in  the 
cathedral  at  six.  The  remainder  of  the  morning 
he  gave  to  study.  At  mealtime,  a  chapter  having 


•(Interiors  ot  ^Learning  219 

been  read,  he  amused  himself  by  listening  to  schol- 
astic arguments  between  young  scholars,  whom 
he  entertained  at  his  table.  Then  his  doors  and 
ears  were  open  to  all  causes.  About  nine  in  the 
evening  he  called  his  servants  to  an  account  of  the 
day,  and  admonished  them  accordingly:  "From 
this  examination  to  his  study  (how  long  it  is  un- 
certain, oftentimes  after  midnight),  and  so  to  bed; 
wherein,  after  some  part  of  an  author  read  to  him 
by  the  gentleman  of  his  bedchamber,  commending 
himself  to  the  protection  of  his  Saviour,  he  took 
his  rest." 

Good  Bishop  Hall  has  furnished  a  sketch  of  his 
own  studious  life  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Denny.  No 
trait  is  wanting  to  complete  it.  Like  his  famous 
contemporary,  he  was  up  in  summer  with  the  bird 
that  first  rises,  and  in  winter  often  before  the 
sound  of  any  bell.  His  waking  thoughts  were 
given  to  Him  who  made  the  cloud  for  rest,  and 
the  sunshine  for  toil.  While  his  body  was  being 
clothed,  he  set  in  order  the  labours  of  the  day, 
and,  entering  his  study,  besought  a  blessing  for 
them  upon  his  knees.  His  words  are:  "Some- 
times I  put  myself  to  school  to  one  of  those  an- 
cients whom  the  Church  hath  honoured  with 
the  name  of  Fathers;  sometimes  to  those  later 


220         pleasures  of  ^literature 

doctors,  who  want  nothing  but  age  to  make  them 
classical;  always  to  God's  Book."  The  season 
of  family  devotion  was  now  come,  and,  this  duty 
heartily  fulfilled,  he  returned  to  his  private  read- 
ing. One  while,  as  he  tells  us,  his  eyes  were 
busied,  and  then  his  hands,  or  contemplation  took 
the  burden  from  both;  textual  divinity  employed 
one  hour,  controversy  another,  history  a  third; 
and  in  short  intervals  of  pensive  talk  with  his 
thoughts,  he  wound  up  the  scattered  threads  of 
learned  research  for  future  use.  Thus  he  wore 
out  the  calm  morning  and  afternoon,  making 
music  with  changes. 

At  length  a  monitor  interrupted  him.  His 
weak  body  grew  weary.  Before  and  after  meals 
he  let  himself  loose  from  scholarship.  Then  com- 
pany, discourse,  and  amusement  were  welcome. 
These  prepared  him  for  a  simple  repast,  from 
which  he  rose  capable  of  more,  though  not  desir- 
ous. No  book  followed  his  late  trencher.  The 
discoveries  and  thoughts  of  the  day  were  dilli- 
gently  recollected,  with  all  the  doings  of  hand  and 
mouth  since  morning.  As  the  night  drew  near  he 
shut  up  his  mind,  comparing  himself  to  a  trades- 
man who  takes  in  his  wares,  and  closes  his  win- 
dows in  the  evening.  He  said  that  a  student  lives 


flnteriors  of  ^Learning  221 

miserably  who  lies  down,  like  a  camel,  under  a 
full  burden.  And  so,  calling  his  family  together, 
he  ended  the  day  with  God,  and  slept,  and  rose  up 
again,  for  He  sustained  him. 

Our  own  century  supplies  a  companion  picture. 
The  literary  life  of  Southey  was  the  rose-garden 
in  the  pleasantest  reading  of  the  allegory.  He 
has  recorded  the  various  occupations  of  the  day, 
and  seldom  were  more  costly  fancies  and  religious 
hopes  collected  into  the  space  that  comes 

"  Between  the  lark's  note  and  the  nightingale's." 

Three  pages  of  history — equal  to  five  of  a  quarto — 
were  his  morning  task  after  breakfast;  transcrib- 
ing, copying  for  the  press,  biographical  collections, 
or  what  else  suited  his  humour,  filled  up  the  gaps 
of  leisure  until  dinner-time.  Then  a  different 
kind  of  toil  relieved  him.  He  read,  wrote  letters, 
saw  the  newspaper,  indulged  in  a  short  slumber — 
for  sleep,  in  his  agreeable  confession,  agreed  with 
his  constitution.  Tea  introduced  poetry,  and 
Thalaba  or  Kehama  underwent  new  trials,  or  ex- 
hibited more  wonderful  magic.  Supper  wound 
up  the  chain  of  thought,  to  strike  the  hours  of  an- 
other day  with  the  same  regularity.  And  ani- 
mating all  his  work  is  seen  a  happy,  Christian 


222         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

spirit,  ever  bringing  the  future  into  the  present, 
and  sunning  itself,  by  anticipation,  in  the  lights 
of  a  brighter  communion.  Most  touching  are 
his  words:  "When  I  cease  to  be  cheerful,  it  is 
only  to  become  contemplative — to  feel  at  times  a 
wish  that  I  was  in  that  state  of  existence  which 
passes  not  away;  and  this  always  ends  in  a  new 
impulse  to  proceed,  that  I  may  leave  some 
durable  monument  and  some  efficient  good  behind 
me." 

Hitherto  we  have  been  gazing  into  the  chamber 
of  the  scholar,  and  the  dreamer  of  magnificent 
dreams;  but  the  cottage  window  ought  to  show 
an  interior  of  beauty  after  its  kind.  There  is  no 
reason  why  the  brown  hand  of  labour  should  not 
hold  Thomson,  as  well  as  the  sickle.  Ornamental 
reading  shelters  and  even  strengthens  the  growth 
of  what  is  merely  useful.  A  corn-field  never  re- 
turns a  poorer  crop  because  a  few  wild-flowers 
bloom  in  the  hedge.  The  refinement  of  the  poor 
is  the  triumph  of  Christian  civilisation. 

It  is  growing.  And  now  along  the  village  street 
or  in  the  lone  dwelling  to  which  the  green  lane 
winds,  we  often  see  some  pleasing  picture  realised. 
The  lending  library  brings  the  good  man's  life, 
the  traveller's  peril,  or  the  martyr's  victory,  to 


Interiors  ot  Xearning  223 

the  winter  hearth,  and  the  garden-seat  in  summer. 
Sweeter  sights  than  these  cheer  our  eyes: 

"  With  due  respect  and  joy 
I  trace  the  matron  at  her  loved  employ  ; 
What  time  the  striplings,  wearied  e'en  with  play 
Part  at  the  closing  of  the  summer's  day, 
And  each  by  different  path  returns  the  well-known  way, 
Then  I  behold  her  at  her  cottage  door, 
Frugal  of  light ;  her  Bible  laid  before, 
When  on  her  double  duty  she  proceeds, 
Of  time  as  frugal,  knitting  as  she  reads  ; 
Her  idle  neighbours,  who  approach  to  tell 
Some  trifling  tale,  her  serious  looks  compel 
To  hear  reluctant — while  the  lads  who  pass, 
In  pure  respect,  walk  silent  on  the  grass." 

A  story  is  told  of  a  Roman  who  expended  vast 
sums  in  purchasing  a  household  of  learned  slaves. 
He  wished  to  have  the  best  poets  and  historians 
in  living  editions.  One  servant  recited  the  whole 
of  the  Iliad;  another  chanted  the  Odes  of  Pindar. 
Every  standard  author  had  a  representative.  The 
free  Press  has  replaced  the  bondman.  Literature 
is  no  longer  an  heirloom,  nor  can  an  emperor  mo- 
nopolise Horace.  A  small  outlay  obtains  a  choicer 
collection  of  verses  than  the  ancient  amateur  en- 
joyed, and  without  the  annoyances  to  which  he 
was  subject.  He  had  no  familiar  book  for  a 


224         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

corner,  nor  any  portable  poet  to  be  a  companion 
in  a  field-walk,  or  under  a  tree.  Not  even  Nero 
could  compress  a  slave  into  an  Elzevir.  Moreover, 
disappointments  sometimes  occurred.  Perhaps 
the  deputy  "Pindar"  was  out  of  the  way;  or  a 
sudden  indisposition  of  "Homer"  interrupted 
Ulysses  in  the  middle  of  an  harangue,  and  left 
Hector  stretching  out  his  arms  to  the  child. 


XXVI 

ACCOUNTABLENESS  OF  AUTHORS 

FEW  objects  are  more  impressive  than  a  large 
library  by  moonlight.    The  deep  stillness, 
the  glimmering  books,  and  the  lighted  shadows 
upon  the  floor,  affect  the  mind  with  a  strange 
solemnity : 

"  At  the  midnight  hour, 

Slow  through  that  studious  gloom  the  pausing  eye, 
Led  by  the  glimmering  taper,  moves  around 
The  sacred  volumes  of  the  dead." 

The  student  puts  his  hand  upon  a  volume,  the 
legacy  of  a  shining  and  depraved  genius,  with  a 
mournful  remembrance  of  the  words  once  uttered 
in  the  high-priest's  palace.  In  a  very  different 
sense  the  speech  betrays  the  writer.  The  sneer, 
the  insult,  and  the  licence,  are  idioms  of  the  dark 
kingdom.  How  contemporaries  flattered  and 
successors  magnify  the  author!  His  vices  were 
weaknesses — the  waste  splendour  of  a  full 
15  225 


226         pleasures  ot  Xiterature 

mind.  The  chisel  has  touched  the  stone  into  his 
image.  His  portraits  hang  in  noble  galleries; 
engravings  tempt  the  eye  in  shop-windows;  a 
thousand  pages  of  panegyric  build  his  epitaph. 
Presently  the  whole  life  and  works  of  the  de- 
parted man  rise  clearly  before  the  musing  eye,  and 
the  Hand  that  scared  the  Babylonian  seems  to 
flash  along  the  wall,  and  the  letters  of  fire  to 
start  forth — 

"  By  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  justified,  and  by  thy  words  thou 
shalt  be  condemned." 

No  homage  to  the  false  charity  of  the  age,  nor 
any  fear  of  its  blame,  should  benumb  this  instinct 
of  sorrowful  apprehension.  I  am  not  speaking 
of  the  sinfulness  which  Chaucer  and  Boccaccio 
bewailed,  and  Dryden  at  least  acknowledged;  but 
of  that  wilful  and  consistent  impiety  of  which 
biography  offers  appalling  illustrations.  Hume, 
mocking  Heaven  upon  his  dying  pillow,  rushed 
headlong,  with  Lucian's  ribaldry  on  his  lips,  into 
the  dreadful  presence  of  the  Judge;  and  eyes  that 
weep  at  a  tragedy  have  no  tears  of  blood  for  the 
saddest  ever  beheld. 

Southey  was  disappointed  in  being  refused 
admission  into  Gibbon's  garden.  But  what  con- 


Hccountableness  of  Hutbors      227 

cern  has  a  Christian  with  the  chamber  where  Mes- 
salina  wantoned,  or  the  study  in  which  Aretine 
blasphemed?  Intellectual  guilt  is  to  be  punished 
with  severity  proportioned  to  its  turpitude  and 
destructiveness.  A  book  is  even  more  than  the 
life  treasured  up  which  Milton  considered  it  to  be. 
It  is  the  soul  disengaged  from  matter.  It  is  a 
fountain  that  flows  forever.  Jeremy  Collier 
asked,  what  should  be  done  to  the  man  who  lav- 
ished his  fortune  in  naturalising  a  fever,  and  or- 
ganised a  system  of  propagating  the  plague 
through  the  post-office?  The  execration  of  the 
world  would  drive  him  into  the  wilderness.  Yet 
it  may  well  be  thought  that  a  man  had  better  be 
defiled  in  his  blood,  than  his  principles. 

It  has  been  conjectured,  by  more  than  one 
grand  and  stern  thinker,  that  a  departed  spirit 
may  retain  a  living  sympathy  with  the  evil  fame 
and  influence  of  its  earthly  career,  and  receive 
intimations  of  the  corrupting  and  enduring  might 
of  genius  in  a  succession  of  direful  shocks;  every 
quickening  of  the  pulse  and  clouding  of  the  faith 
by  a  voluptuous,  or  a  sceptical  book,  darting  a 
pang  of  intolerable  agony  into  the  author's  heart. 
Under  this  affecting  view  of  the  accountableness 
of  literature,  we  may  look  upon  each  betrayal  to 


228         pleasures  of  Xiterature 

vice  and  unbelief  as  a  dismal  episode  of  spiritual 
torment;  upon  each  deathbed  of  crime,  first 
taught  and  cherished  by  the  ministry  of  the  pen, 
as  a  sharper  sting  given  to  the  worm;  and  upon 
fathers'  and  mothers'  sighs  over  lost  children,  as 
so  many  gusts  to  freshen  the  flame  and  the  an- 
guish of  the  middle  state. 

An  interesting  anecdote  of  a  great  writer,  with- 
drawn from  the  earth,  has  been  recorded  by  a 
friend:  "The  last  time  I  saw  Mr.  Wordsworth, 
he  was  in  deep  domestic  sorrow,  and  beginning  to 
bend  under  the  infirmities  of  old  age.  'What- 
ever/ he  said,  '  the  world  may  think  of  me  or  of 
my  poetry  is  now  of  little  consequence;  but  one 
thing  is  a  comfort  of  my  old  age,  that  none  of  my 
works,  written  since  the  days  of  my  early  youth, 
contains  a  line  I  should  wish  to  blot  out  be- 
cause it  panders  to  the  baser  passions  of  our 
nature.  'This/  said  he,  'is  a  comfort  to  me; 
I  can  do  no  mischief  by  my  works  when  I  am 
gone.'" 

Books,  of  which  the  principles  are  diseased  or 
deformed,  must  be  kept  on  the  shelf  of  the  scholar, 
as  the  man  of  science  preserves  monsters  in  glasses. 
They  belong  to  the  study  of  the  mind's  morbid 
anatomy,  and  ought  to  be  accurately  labelled 


Hccountabieness  of  Hutbors      229 

Voltaire  will  still  be  a  wit,  notwithstanding  he  is 
a  scoffer;  and  we  may  admire  the  brilliant  spots 
and  eyes  of  the  viper,  if  we  acknowledge  its  venom 
and  call  it  a  reptile. 

But  the  truth  must  be  spoken — and  for  such 
offenders  what  rebuke  is  too  stern?  These  are 
they  whose  activity  of  evil  grows  with  their  fame; 
who,  red  all  over  with  the  blood  of  souls  in  life,  do 
murder  even  in  their  graves.  If  the  servant,  who 
hid  his  talent  in  the  ground,  was  driven  from  his 
Master's  presence  into  misery,  what  reward  may 
he  look  for  who  puts  out  his  treasure  with  the  dark 
Exchanger,  and  traffics  in  all  the  merchandise 
of  sin  ?  That  author  alone  fulfils  his  calling  to 
whom,  in  some  degree,  a  friend's  panegyric  of 
Addison  may  be  applied — that  his  compositions 
are  but  a  preface,  published  on  earth,  to  that 
grander  work  of  his  life  which  is  to  be  read  in 
heaven. 

The  accountableness  of  authors  has  been  en- 
forced; but  there  is  likewise  a  responsibility  of 
readers.  The  deep  reflection  of  Davenant  ad- 
mits of  a  larger  application — "The  plays  of  child- 
ren are  punished;  the  plays  of  men  are  excused 
under  the  title  of  business."  Readers,  whose  life 
is  one  long  task-work  of  idleness,  may  recollect 


23o         pleasures  of  literature 

that  time  is  religious  money,  certain  at  a  future 
period  to  be  called  in ;  and  that  a  sleepless  Eye  is 
keeping  the  account.  The  column  of  debt  will 
show  an  alarming  balance,  when  the  outrages  of 
Eugene  Sue,  and  the  politer  wickedness  of  the 
French  lady  who  calls  herself  a  man,  are  found  to 
have  absorbed  the  hours,  or  even  the  leisure  of  a 
week. 

Feminine  education  is  beyond  the  boundary  of 
this  discourse.  Yet  surely  the  mission  of  woman 
demands  a  higher  teaching  than  modern  instruc- 
tion usually  gives.  It  is  an  adjustment  of  me- 
chanism rather  than  a  shaping  of  mind.  One  might 
imagine  that  the  ultimate  aim  and  result  of  her 
creation  were  to  be  realised,  in  the  pursuit  of 
some  flying  composer  of  visionary  swiftness;  in 
pasturing  uncomfortable  cows  upon  thirsty  fields 
of  red  chalk;  or  exhibiting  the  Great  Mogul  scowl- 
ing frightfully  in  worsted.  In  this  respect  the 
nineteenth  century  will  gain  small  applause  from 
a  parallel  with  the  sixteenth;  when  the  brightest 
eyes  were  familiar  with  Greek,  as  now  with  Ros- 
sini; and  a  Latin  letter  to  Ascham  about  Plato 
was  run  off  with  the  fluent  grace  of  an  invitation 
to  a  wedding.  Some  thinkers  will  perceive  in 
those  decorations  of  the  mind  a  lasting  fascina- 


Hccountableness  ot  Butbors      231 

tion,  not  always  found  in  later  accomplishments, 
and  consider  them  more  likely  to  win  unquiet 
hearts  from  wandering  and  turmoil : 

"  To  fireside  happiness  and  hours  of  ease, 
Blest  with  that  charm — the  certainty  to  please." 


XXVII 

THE  CULTIVATED  MIND  AND  THE 
UNINFORMED 

IT  was  a  happy  thought  to  compare  a  mind, 
enriched  by  reading  and  reflection,  to  a  room 
in  which  a  person  talks  with  a  beautiful  woman, 
among  the  balmy  lights  of  a  summer  evening; 
and  to  see  the  image  of  a  mind,  neglected  and 
rude,  in  the  same  apartment,  when  the  sun  is  set 
and  the  lovely  occupant  has  gone  away.  The 
man  of  taste  and  learning  recognises  himself  in  a 
figure.  The  cheering  presence  of  beauty  and  the 
magical  effects  of  colour  are  continually  within 
him;  while  ignorance  sits  dark  and  lonely,  till 
education  opens  its  eyes  to  the  radiance,  and  un- 
locks its  ears  to  the  charming  of  the  charmer: 

"  The  sweetest  Lady  of  the  time, 
Well  worthy  of  the  golden  prime." 

The  pleasure  is  within  the  reach  of  all  true 
seekers.    The  common  flower  does  not  grow  by 
232 


V 

Ube  Cultivated  flMnt>  233 

the  cottage  door  more  joyfully  in  the  sun  and  rain. 
Mirandula  mentions  a  plant  whose  leaf,  taking  a 
strong  hold  of  the  earth,  shoots  up  into  flourish- 
ing branches.  The  fiction  of  the  Italian  seems  to 
be  an  emblem  of  knowledge.  A  winter  even- 
ing thoughtfully  employed  may  be  the  leaf,  that, 
striking  its  root  downward  and  spreading  upward, 
will  be  covered  all  over  with  boughs  and  fruit.  A 
day  opens  into  a  week,  a  week  blossoms  into  a 
month,  until  the  persevering  learner  is  embowered 
and  refreshed  by  the  foliage  and  the  clusters  of  a 
year.  Every  fresh  acquirement  is  another  re- 
medy against  affliction  and  time.  The  sick  soul 
possesses  a  holier  hospital  for  its  fever,  or  its 
wounds;  but  literature  is  often  a  portico,  or 
outer  chamber;  and  Homer  prepared  a  costly 
elixir,  when  he  showed  Minerva  concealing  the 
wrinkles  of  Ulysses. 

A  good  book  has  been  likened  to  a  well-chosen 
orchard  tree,  carefully  tended.  Its  fruits  are  not 
of  one  season.  Year  by  year  it  yields  abundant 
produce,  and  often  of  a  mellower  flavour.  Blanco 
White,  reading  Tasso  after  thirty  years  of  neglect, 
gives  cheering  testimony:  "If  I  open  the  treas- 
ures of  literature  which  nourished  my  mind  in 
youth,  I  feel  young  again,  and  my  mind  seems 


234          pleasures  of  literature 

to  be  transported  into  the  regions  of  love  and 
beauty,  which  I  can  now  better  enjoy  than  during 
the  fever  of  the  passions." 

Perhaps  the  calmer  industry  of  the  matured 
taste  helps  it  to  find  the  hidden  fragrance.  Many 
flowers — gay  and  flaunting — the  commonest  in- 
sects may  rifle;  but  only  the  bee  reaches  the 
honey  when  it  lies  in  a  long  tube.  Moreover,  the 
toil  of  the  bee  is  always  tranquil;  its  hum  ceases 
over  the  blossom.  From  numberless  books  the 
fluttering  reader — idle  and  inconstant— bears 
away  the  bloom  that  clings  to  the  outer  leaf;  but 
genius  has  its  nectaries,  delicate  glands,  and 
secrecies  of  sweetness, — and  upon  these  the 
thoughtful  mind  must  settle  in  its  labour,  before 
the  choice  perfume  of  fancy  and  wisdom  is  drawn 
forth. 

The  truest  blessing  of  literature  is  found  in  the 
inward  light  and  peace  which  it  bestows.  Bent- 
ley  advised  his  nephew  never  to  read  a  book  that 
he  could  not  quote;  as  if  the  thrush  in  the  May- 
leaves  did  not  contradict  the  caution.  The  music 
of  wisdom  is  in  the  heart. 

And  this  sequestered  spirit  of  meditative  en- 
joyment is  recognised  in  much  of  our  early  fancy 
and  learning.  Disraeli  indicates  a  certain  alarm 


Cultivated  flMn&  235 

at  the  printing  press.  The  publisher  of  Eng- 
land's Helicon  pasted  slips  over  the  names  of  the 
contributors.  Sidney  wrote  the  Arcadia  for 
the  woods  of  Wilton.  Sackville's  Induction  to 
the  Mirror  for  Magistrates  was  sent  abroad  un- 
acknowledged. 

A  sincere  lover  of  literature  loves  it  for  itself 
alone;  and  it  rewards  his  affection.  He  is  shel- 
tered as  in  a  fortress.  Whatever  troubles  and 
sorrows  besiege  him  outside,  his  well  of  water,  his 
corn,  and  his  wine  are  safe  within  the  walls.  The 
world  is  shut  out.  Even  in  the  tumult  of  great 
affairs  he  is  undisturbed.  Dr.  Harvey,  the  dis- 
coverer of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  had  the 
two  young  princes  entrusted  to  his  care  at  the 
battle  of  Edgehill;  having  withdrawn  them  to  a 
short  distance  from  the  fight,  he  sat  down  under 
a  hedge,  and,  taking  a  book  from  his  pocket, 
quietly  perused  it,  until  a  ball  from  a  gun  grazed 
the  ground  close  by,  and  obliged  him  to  retire. 

An  affecting  instance  of  the  compensations  of 
learning  is  furnished  by  the  old  age  of  Ussher, 
when  no  spectacles  could  help  his  failing  sight, 
and  a  book  was  dark  except  beneath  the  strongest 
light  of  the  window.  Hopeful  and  resigned,  he 
continued  his  task,  following  the  sun  from  room 


236          pleasures  of  ^Literature 

to  room  through  the  house  he  lived  in,  until  the 
shadows  of  trees  disappeared  from  the  grass,  and 
the  day  was  gone.  How  strange  and  delightful 
must  have  been  his  feelings,  when  the  sunbeam 
fell  brilliantly  upon  some  half-remembered  pas- 
sage, and  thought  after  thought  shone  out  from 
the  misty  words  like  the  features  of  a  familiar 
landscape  in  a  clearing  fog. 

Pleasant  it  would  be  for  us,  in  our  gloomier 
hours,  if  we  might  imitate  that  Indian  bird  which 
enjoys  the  sunshine  all  the  day,  and  secures  a  faint 
reflection  of  it  in  the  night,  by  sticking  glow- 
worms over  the  sides  of  its  nest.  And  something 
of  this  light  is  obtained  from  the  books  read  in 
youth,  to  be  remembered  in  age: 

"  And  summer's  green  all  girded  up  in  sheaves." 

Coleridge  said  that  the  scenes  of  his  childhood 
were  so  deeply  written  on  his  mind,  that  when 
upon  a  still,  shining  day  of  summer  he  shut  his 
eyes,  the  river  Otter  ran  murmuring  down  the 
room,  with  the  soft  tints  of  its  waters,  the  willows 
on  the  bank,  and  the  coloured  sands  of  its  bed. 
The  lover  of  books  cherishes  the  sweeter  memories 
that  endear  his  solitude,  and  make  it  musical. 


XXVIII 
THE  PARTING  WORD 

I  BRING  to  an  end  my  discourse  on  the  Pleas- 
ures of  Literature;  of  many  thoughts  few 
have  been  gathered,  while  others,  perhaps,  of 
richer  hues  and  fragrance,  were  unplucked,  or 
cast  away.  It  is  amusing  to  observe  the  different 
impressions  made  by  the  same  scenery  on  a  party 
of  travellers.  A  mountain  pass  delighted  one  vis- 
itor, while  another  remembers  a  glen  unknown  to 
his  companions,  and  of  extreme  loveliness.  The 
readers  of  this  book  may  resemble  the  travellers, 
and  complain  of  fine  scenes  left  out,  or  of  inferior 
views  too  elaborately  presented.  Variety  must 
always  be  an  accident  of  opinion.  But  the  sub- 
ject, however  considered,  is  difficult  from  its 
extent.  A  survey  of  the  understanding,  in  its 
ornamental  developments,  has  the  inconveniences 
as  well  as  the  charms  of  a  walk  in  a  romantic 
country.  The  attention  is  perplexed  by  agreeable 
objects  on  every  side.  Shadowy  paths  wind 
237 


238         pleasures  ot  literature 

under  trees;  lone  birds  warble  far  down  in  the 
twilight  hollows;  or  some  ancient  hall,  with  its 
mossy  terraces,  sleeps  in  the  warm  valley.  The 
visitor  would  gladly  explore  every  haunt,  but 
time  restrains  his  feet  within  the  beaten  track; 
short  loving  pauses  are  all  that  he  can  give,  by  the 
blossoming  copse,  the  ivy-grown  gate,  or  the 
grassy  tombs  of  the  hamlet.  But  the  grey  manor- 
house  wins  most  of  his  regard.  It  recalls  the  long 
gone  years  to  his  memory,  and  he  beholds  the 
knight  and  his  train  setting  out,  with  cross  and 
armour,  for  the  Sepulchre  of  the  Holy  Land. 
Something  of  this  pensive  sadness  is  felt  by  the 
student  in  his  excursion  into  literature.  The 
varied  landscape  tempts  him  from  the  open  road ; 
still  paths  of  meditation  whisper  calm;  distant 
notes  of  poetry  steal  out  of  unfrequented  nooks; 
stately  ruins  of  wisdom  allure  his  eye;  and  crumb- 
ling graves  of  the  mighty  touch  him  with  sympa- 
thetic reverence.  He,  too,  lives  again  in  the 
magnificence  of  the  past.  The  manor-house  with 
its  parting  knight  is  not  an  empty  symbol.  What 
are  poets,  philosophers,  and  men  of  splendid  enter- 
prise, but  the  chivalry  of  genius,  going  forth,  in 
the  morning  of  their  strength,  to  vanquish  ene- 
mies of  virtue,  release  captive  souls,  and  bring 


Ube  parting  Motto  239 

back  treasures  of  renown?  How  dazzling  is  the 
march  with  fame  in  the  van !  Many  depart,  few 
return.  Some  die  in  battle;  some  are  borne  from 
it  wounded;  some  triumph,  only  to  faint  in  the 
desert  with  the  well  in  sight.  So  the  tale  of  liter- 
ature has  its  toll  as  well  as  its  trumpet ;  the  corona- 
tion encloses  a  funeral ;  and  the  banner  of  victory 
droops  over  the  bier  of  the  conqueror.  But  the 
eyes  and  the  ears  of  the  living  see  and  hear  only 
the  rejoicings  and  the  honours  of  the  departed. 
The  trumpet  drowns  the  toll;  the  conflict  is  for- 
gotten in  the  conquest;  the  death  is  illuminated 
by  the  crown.  So  it  should  be.  As  one  plume 
sinks,  another  eager  foot  climbs  the  steep.  The 
dead  ever  speak  to  the  weary,  ever  cheer  the 
brave,  ever  beckon  the  hopeful  to  the  temple, 
that  shines  with  its  own  inward  sun,  and  glorifies 
time  with  thought. 

Whatsoever  in  these  pages  I  have  written  of 
literature  and  its  pleasures  belongs  to  the  digni- 
fied efforts  of  the  mind — to  the  imagination  that 
embellishes  life,  and  the  philosophy  that  ennobles 
it.  The  true  scholar  drinks  from  the  fountains 
which  taste  keeps  pure;  the  corrupted  streams 
of  popular  entertainment  flow  by  him  unheeded. 
Learning,  chastened  and  sanctified,  he  numbers 


240         pleasures  of  ^Literature 

with  the  most  precious  blessings  and  endearments 
of  home;  when  clasping  the  hand  of  religion  it 
becomes  its  vassal  and  its  friend.  By  this  union 
he  obtains  the  tenderness  and  the  gu  dance  of  two 
companions  loving  and  be'oved,  redoub  ing  his 
joys  in  health,  bringing  flowers  to  his  pillow  in 
sickness,  and  shedding  the  glory  and  the  peace  of 
the  past  over  the  blackness  and  consternation  of 
the  present. 


BOOKS  QUOTED 


Gray's  Letters  to  Walpole,  1 747. 
Owen  Feltham's  Resolves. 
Du  Choix  des  Etudes. 

Gilpin's  Observations  on  the  West  of  England. 
Pope's  Essay  on  Criticism. 
Stewart's  Life  of  Robertson. 
Gibbon's  Roman  Empire. 
Jeremy  Collier's  Essays,  Part  ii. 
Homer's  Odyssey,  translated  by  Cowper. 
Gray's  Letters. 
Pope's  Works. 

Stewart's  Philosophical  Essays. 
Akenside's  Pleasures  of  Imagination. 
Hume's  Essays.    , 
Spectator,  No.  37. 
De  Stael — Of  Literature. 
Schlegel's  /Esthetic  and  Miscellaneous  Works. 
Hallam's  Introduction  to  Literature  of  Europe. 
Helvetius,  De  1'Esprit. 
Shenstone's  Works. 
V.  Marville — Melanges. 
P.  Knight's  Analytical  Principles  of  Taste. 
Hurd's  Works. 
Shaftesbury's  Works. 
Reynolds's  Discourses. 
Alison's  Essays  on  Taste. 
Gilpin's  First  Essay  on  Picturesque  Beauty. 
16  241 


242         pleasures  of  ^literature 

Spenser's  Faery  Queen. 

Twining's  Dissertations  to  Aristotle  on  Poetry. 

Edwards's  Canons  of  Criticism. 

Pope's  Dunciad,  Bk.  iv. 

Bacon's  Advancement  of  Learning. 

Selden's  Table-Talk. 

Trublet,  Essais  sur  divers  Sujets  de  Litterature. 

Charles  Lamb's  Elia. 

Mitford's  Life  of  Parnell. 

Disraeli's  Miscellanies. 

Cowley's  Essays. 

Johnsoniana — Hawkins. 

Elrington's  Life  of  Ussher. 

Fell's  Life  of  Hammond. 

Sir  W.  Temple's  Works. 

Montesquieu,  Lettres  Persanes. 

Jortin's  Tracts. 

Opie's  Lectures. 

Bishop  Newton's  Works. 

Fontenelle. 

Middleton's  Life  of  Cicero. 

Pascal  Pensees,  Seconde  Partie. 

Seeker's  Works  by  Porteus. 

Dryden's  Prose  Works  by  Malone. 

Berkeley's  Works. 

Warburton's  Letters. 

Eastlake's  Literature  of  the  Fine  Arts. 

Burnet's  Notes  on  Reynolds. 

Martin  Sherlock's  Letters  from  a  Traveller. 

Pope's  Preface  to  Shakespeare. 

Davenant's  Perface  to  Gondibert. 

Warton's  Essay  on  Pope. 

Butler's  Hudibras. 

Mitford's  edition  of  Gray's  Works. 

Spence — On  Pope's  Odyssey,  Evening  v. 

Derham's  Physico-Theology. 


:)Boofcs  (Siuotefc  243 

James  Montgomery's  Lectures. 

Leigh  Hunt's  Imagination  and  Fancy. 

Coleridge's  Literary  Remains. 

Warton's  Observations  on  the  Faery  Queen. 

Dryden — On  Dramatic  Poesy. 

Hurd— On  Art  of  Poetry. 

Earl's  Eastern  Seas 

A.  W.  Schlegel — On  Dramatic  Art. 

Rambler,  Nos.  iv.  and  clvi. 

Burney's  Life  of  Metastasio. 

Azais — Des  Compensations. 

Disraeli's  Amenities. 

Price's  Preface  to  Warton's  History. 

Crabbe's  Works. 

Foster's  Essays. 

Piozzi's  British  Synonomy. 

Robert  Hall's  Miscellaneous  Works. 

Sir  Thomas  Browne's  Christian  Morals,  Part  iii. 

Fuller's  Worthies  of  England. 

Hayley's  Poetical  Works. 

Lanzi's  History  of  Painting. 

Stewart's  Account  of  Robertson. 

Mitchell's  Knights  of  Aristophanes. 

Donne's  Sermons. 

Miller's  Bampton  Lectures. 

Henry  Smith's  Sermons. 

Seed's  Discourses  at  the  Lady  Meyer's  Lecture. 

Young — On  Original  Composition. 

Sedgwick's  Discourses  on  the  Studies  of  Cambridge. 

Life  of  Blanco  White,  by  Thorn. 

Montesquieu,  De  1"  Esprit  des  Loix. 

Foster's  Contributions  to  the  Eclectic  Review. 

Southey's  Letters. 

Walsh's  Preface  to  Aristophanes. 


A  New  Book  by 
ARTHUR  CHRISTOPHER  BENSON 

Now  Ready 

BESIDE  STILL  WATERS 

Uniform  with  the  "  Upton  Letters" 

A  record  of  the  sentiments,  the  changing  opinions,  and  the 
quiet  course  of  life  of  a  young  man  whom  an  unexpected  legacy 
has  freed  from  the  necessity  of  leading  an  active  life  in  the  world 
of  affairs.  The  book  aims  to  win  men  back  to  the  joys  of  peace- 
ful work,  and  simplicity,  and  friendship,  and  quiet  helpfulness. 
It  is,  too,  a  protest  against  the  rule  or  tyranny  of  convention,  the 
appetite  for  luxury,  power,  excitement  and  strong  sensation. 

qth  Impression. 

Earlier  Books  by  Mr.  Benson 

FROM  A  COLLEGE  WINDOW 

"  Mr.  Benson  has  written  nothing  equal  to  this  mellow  and 
full-flavored  book.  From  cover  to  cover  it  is  packed  with  per- 
sonality ;  from  phrase  to  phrase  it  reveals  a  thoroughly  sincere 
and  unaffected  effort  of  self-expression  ;  full-orbed  and  four- 
square, it  is  a  piece  of  true  and  simple  literature." 

London  Chronicle, 
loth  Impression. 

THE  UPTON  LETTERS 

"A  piece  of  real  literature  of  the  highest  order,  beautiful 
and  fragrant.  To  review  the  book  adequately  is  impossible.  .  .  . 
It  is  in  truth  a  precious  thing." —  Week' s  Survey. 

"  A  book  that  we  have  read  and  reread  if  only  for  the  sake 
of  its  delicious  flavor.  There  has  been  nothing  so  good  of  its 
kind  since  the  Etchingham  Letters.  The  letters  are  beautiful, 
quiet,  and  wise,  dealing  with  deep  things  in  a  dignified  way." 

Christian  Register. 

Crown  8vo,  Each,  $1.25  Net. 


Shelburne  Essays 

By  Paul  Elmer  More 

4  vols.     Crown  octavo. 
Sold  separately.     Net,  $1.25.     (By  mail  $1.35) 

Contents 

FIRST  SERIES:  A  Hermit's  Notes  on  Thoreau — The  Soli- 
tude of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne — The  Origins  of  Haw- 
thorne and  Poe — The  Influence  of  Emerson — The  Spirit 
of  Carlyle — The  Science  of  English  Verse — Arthur 
Symonds  :  The  Two  Illusions — The  Epic  of  Ireland — 
Two  Poets  of  the  Irish  Movement — Tolstoy  ;  or,  The 
Ancient  Feud  between  Philosophy  and  Art — The  Re- 
ligious Ground  of  Humanitarianism. 

SECOND  SERIES  :  Elizabethan  Sonnets — Shakespeare's  Son- 
nets— Lafcadio  Hearn — The  First  Complete  Edition  of 
Hazlitt  —  Charles  Lamb  —  Kipling  and  FitzGerald  — 
George  Crabbe — The  Novels  of  George  Meredith  — 
Hawthorne:  Looking  before  and  after — Delphi  and 
Greek  Literature — Nemesis  ;  or,  The  Divine  Envy. 

THIRD  SERIES  :  The  Correspondence  of  William  Cowper— 
Whittier  the  Poet— The  Centenary  of  Sainte-Beuve — 
The  Scotch  Novels  and  Scotch  History — Swinburne — 
Christina  Rossetti — Why  is  Browning  Popular  ? — A  note 
on  Byron's  "Don  Juan"— Laurence  Sterne— J.  Henry 
Shorthouse — The  Quest. 

FOURTH  SERIES  :  The  Vicar  of  Morwenstow — Fanny  Bur- 
ney— A  note  on  "  Daddy"  Crisp— George  Herbert— John 
Keats— Benjamin  Franklin— Charles  Lamb  Again — Walt 
Whitman— William  Blake— The  Letters  of  Horace  Wai- 
pole— The  Theme  of  Paradise  Lost. 


4  Few  Press  Criticisms  on 
Shelburne  Essays 

"  It  is  a  pleasure  to  hail  in  Mr.  More  a  genuine  critic,  for 
genuine  critics  in  America  in  these  days  are  uncommonly 
scarce.  .  .  .  We  recommend,  as  a  sample  of  his  breadth, 
style,  acumen,  and  power  the  essay  on  Tolstoy  in  the  present 
volume.  That  represents  criticism  that  has  not  merely 
a  metropolitan  but  a  world  note.  .  .  .  One  is  thoroughly 
grateful  to  Mr.  More  for  the  high  quality  of  his  thought,  his 
serious  purpose,  and  his  excellent  style." — Harvard  Gradtt- 
ates*  Magazine. 

44  We  do  not  know  of  any  one  now  writing  who  gives 
evidence  of  a  better  critical  equipment  than  Mr.  More.  It 
is  rare  nowadays  to  find  a  writer  so '  thoroughly  familiar  with 
both  ancient  and  modern  thought.  It  is  this  width  of  view, 
this  intimate  acquaintance  with  so  much  of  the  best  that  has 
been  thought  and  said  in  the  world,  irrespective  of  local 
prejudice,  that  constitute  Mr.  More's  strength  as  a  critic. 
He  has  been  able  to  form  for  himself  a  sound  literary  canon 
and  a  sane  philosophy  of  life  which  constitute  to  our  mind 
his  peculiar  merit  as  a  critic." — Independent. 

14  He  is  familiar  with  classical,  Oriental,  and  English 
literature ;  he  uses  a  temperate,  lucid,  weighty,  and  not 
ungraceful  style  ;  he  is  aware  of  his  best  predecessors,  and  is 
apparently  on  the  way  to  a  set  of  philosophic  principles 
which  should  lead  him  to  a  high  and  perhaps  influential 
place  in  criticism.  .  .  .  We  believe  that  we  are  in  the 
presence  of  a  critic  who  must  be  counted  among  the  first  who 
take  literature  and  life  for  their  theme." — London  Speaker* 


G.  P.   Putnam's  Sons 
New  York  London 


A  Sterling  Piece  of  Literary  Work 

THE   NOVELS  OF  HENRY  JAMES 

BY 

ELISABETH    LUTHER    GARY 

Author  of  "  The  Rossettis,"  "  William  Morris,"  etc. 

WITH  A  BIBLIOGRAPHY  BY  FREDERICK  A.  KING 

Crown  octavo.     With  Portrait  in  Photogravure. 
Net,  $1.25    (By  mail,  81.35) 

All  of  Miss  Gary's  work  in  biography  and  criti- 
cism is  marked  by  the  distinct  note  of  appre- 
ciation. In  such  a  spirit  she  brings  her  reader 
into  close  touch  with  the  mental  and  spiritual  traits 
of  each  author,  and  leaves  him  with  a  deeper  im- 
pression of  the  general  influences  of  the  subject 
chosen  for  study.  In  her  latest  volume,  a  critical 
interpretation  of  the  novels  of  Mr.  Henry  James, 
she  has  a  theme  well  suited  to  her  powers  of  in- 
sight and  illumination,  and  as  a  trained  writer,  a 
student  of  character  and  literature,  Miss  Gary  is 
well  equipped  for  her  congenial  task. 

The  intention  of  the  book  is  sufficiently  indi- 
cated by  its  title.  It  is  an  attempt  to  fix  more  or 
less  definitely  the  impression  given  by  the  work  of 
Mr.  James  taken  as  a  whole  accomplishment  and 
reviewed  with  reference  to  its  complete  effect.  It 
is  not  so  much  a  criticism  as  a  comment  upon 
the  author's  point  of  view  and  the  inferences  he 
draws  from  life.  An  exhaustive  bibliography  com- 
piled by  Frederick  A.  King,  arranged  logically  as 
well  as  chronologically,  completes  a  remarkably  in- 
teresting and  well  rounded  piece  of  contemporary 
criticism 

0.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 


